A Fork in the Road
by peanutbutterer
Summary: AU from the end of Hand-to-Hand. What if Deeks had said no? Would they still end up in the same place if they'd taken a different path? [K/D]
1. Chapter 1

a/n: Fair warning: this story isn't finished, I'm not sure on the timeline for updating, and multi-chapter romance is completely outside my wheelhouse. But hey, let's try it anyway! ;) Thank you, K, for the assist.

* * *

_Now I found another fork in the road_  
_And I'm just guessing as I go_  
_What the next move is gonna be_

_~ Zac Brennan, 'Your Next Move'_

* * *

_Deeks shakes his head. "You guys don't need a liaison officer."_

"_I agree," says Hetty, sliding a folder across the bar. "I told him we already have one."_

_He takes the file and opens it, finding a copy of his LAPD identification photo and an application that's already been filled out._

"_Who are you guys?" His eyes scan the papers, reading details of his life he knows he hadn't shared. "How did you get all this information?"_

_His address, his phone number, his SSN. His work history, education, references. Notable busts. Less notable disasters. His official reprimands._

"_I mean, the only thing missing here is..."_

_Hetty holds out a pen, offering him the chance to add his signature. She smiles. Maybe. It's kind of hard to tell._

"_No need to date it."_

_He thinks about this mysterious woman, about her secret team and her offer - about the world he could open up with a flick of her pen; about the doors that would simultaneously close behind him._

"_No, there's not," he agrees, closing the folder and sliding it back. He returns his attention to his drink._

"_I'm sorry, Hetty. But I'm not the guy you're looking for."_

* * *

"He's asserting his independence," Nate explains. "It's a power thing. Authority issues."

Hetty's lips narrow ever so slightly. "Not what I would have expected," she breathes out across her desk.

"Not something you say very often, I imagine."

"Not something I say very often, Mr. Getz."

Hetty's gaze drifts over to the bullpen. Sam is working through his operational report, apparent by the sheer volume of paperwork strewn across his desk. An anomaly for Sam. Callen is reading, although it is unclear what. His focus is pulled down. Internalized. Kensi is staring across at the empty chair next to Sam.

"You'll find her the right partner, Hetty. You always do."

"That's the problem, Nate. I already found him."

Nate's frown disappears for a moment. "We're not in the Scottish Highlands. There can be more than one."

"Don't be too sure of that," Hetty cautions.

Nate's lips settle back into a frown.

"Were I just looking for an agent, I could have filled that seat long ago. I have any number of good agents at my disposal. But Ms. Blye doesn't need another agent. She needs a partner. Someone who supports her. Someone who challenges her. Someone she can come to depend on in the field and out of it."

"Careful, Hetty. You're starting to sound less like a super-spy mastermind and more like a real human being."

"Of all people, Mr. Getz, you should appreciate the need to find the right fit for the team both physically and mentally."

"I know." He nods. "I'm just not sure Kensi's ready for that kind of trust."

"I'm not sure she ever will be. But if there's one thing I have learned as a super-spy mastermind it's that there is a delicate balance between pushing too hard and not pushing enough."

"Besides," she says, rising from her chair, signaling an end to the discussion, "who wants to live forever?"

* * *

Kensi smooths the hem of her slightly-too-short-but-not-quite-scandalous black dress as she re-crosses her legs. She slides a noodle off her fork and refocuses her gaze across the table as he launches into what she thinks must be his third courtroom drama story in the last 45 minutes.

The ice clicks softly as she swirls the last of the liquid around the bottom of her glass and debates ordering a second.

"I was just lucky the judge was in a good mood," he says with a shrug of his broad shoulders. Richard. Thirty-four. Brown hair, brown eyes. Looks slightly better than good in a suit. Muscular compared to the average guy in the restaurant. A little below average compared to her co-workers. Modest. Good teeth.

"It sounds like it was a little bit more than luck." She sweeps a stray tendril of hair off her face, tucks it behind her ear, and widens her eyes a little bit to make sure she appears suitably impressed.

A smirk tugs at the edge of his lips. "Probably."

Modesty falls off her list of his attributes as she weighs the pros and cons of sopping up some of the cream sauce with another piece of bread. Her dream guy wouldn't mind, but Richard wasn't him so she decides to play it safe.

"More drinks?" asks the waiter, pausing at their table on his way back to the kitchen.

Richard drains the last of his two-olive martini. "Please."

The waiter nods toward Kensi's glass. "Ma'am?"

She glances at the melting ice and then up at Richard. She thinks about the investment banker. And the photographer. This isn't the best date she's ever had, but she's certainly been on worse. She smiles. "Sure."

"I'll be right back."

"So, Charlene," says Richard, once the waiter has gone, "being a flight attendant must be exciting."

"Yeah, it is. Very."

He smiles at her pleasantly, waiting for more.

She spent the better part of the morning in a speedboat chase with a narco-terrorist. She's sure there's something exhilarating about being a waitress some 30,000 odd feet in the sky, but a specific example isn't coming to mind.

When she doesn't elaborate, he asks, "Have you always loved traveling? Or was it the cranky, stressed people crammed into small spaces that appealed to you?"

He pauses for laughter.

She obliges.

"You must have so many interesting stories."

"I do, yes. Definitely!" Maybe she can come up with an anecdote about a patron with a peanut allergy, or a malfunctioning oxygen mask. She pulls her napkin off her lap and sets it on the table. "But first, I'm going to visit the ladies' room."

She slips out of the booth and makes her way to the back of the restaurant, weaving between tables as she goes.

Once inside she heads straight for the sink, primping her hair and waiting for the lady at the hand-dryer to leave. When she does, Kensi leans on the counter and looks at herself in the mirror. Looks at _Charlene_ in the mirror.

When she made her online profile she thought she could be herself. She thought she could be Kensi - just without the job stuff. Non-agent Kensi. It had a nice ring to it. The unarmed and non-lethal version of herself. But the more she tries to pretend the more she realizes that Kensi without the job stuff isn't Kensi at all. Being an agent is who she is and when she tries to pretend that part doesn't exist she has a really hard time being herself.

She sighs, reapplies her lipgloss and tucks it into her clutch. She takes a deep breath.

Kensi Blye may not have shown up tonight, but Charlene is here. And Charlene is going to get laid.

She adjusts her breasts, tugs at her skirt and pulls open the bathroom door. She takes a confident step into the hallway and crashes into a wall of lean muscle.

She lets out an unladylike nonverbal and grabs on to steady herself.

The muscle grunts and grabs her back.

So much for confidence.

"God, I'm so sorry! I wasn't," she shakes off the impact, sweeping that pesky tendril back into place as she looks up at her victim, "...paying attention."

Blue eyes twinkle above a cocky smirk. Blue eyes she thought she'd never have to see again.

"Detective Deeks."

"Agent Blye." His hands release her arms. "You good?"

She clears her throat. "Yeah, good."

"Good."

His face is almost healed, but there's still a little yellow around his eye from the bruising. "And you're okay?"

"Well, I do have to pee, but otherwise I'm in perfect working order."

She realizes she's still got a hand on his chest and she pulls it back as if it were burned. "Sorry."

He's still smirking. "Forgiven."

She crouches down to the ground to collect her clutch and regroup, her composure apparently having been knocked loose in the collision. She blames Charlene.

When she stands again she's Kensi and she likes the way it feels.

She smirks back at him. "Guess you got that hug after all."

He grins. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Lucky you." She puts her hand on his shoulder and lifts her foot, adjusting the strap of her heel before setting it back down.

She tugs on her skirt and straightens her spine, meeting his eyes briefly before breezing past him. "Have a good pee, Detective."

She hears his parting shot as she makes her way into the dining room. She doesn't give him the satisfaction of looking over her shoulder to see if the smirk is still there. She's sure it is anyway.

"I always do."

* * *

Another glass of JD and a slice of New York cheesecake later, Richard escorts her out of the restaurant. She tucks her bare arm into his suited one as she passes Deeks' table.

The detective's wrapped up in a leggy blonde who's pressed so firmly against him she's practically a barnacle, sharing one side of a two-sided booth. Blondie's giggling and flirting and working way too hard. It's overkill, really, but Deeks is clearly enjoying himself.

Kensi makes an effort to avoid eye-contact, but she needn't have bothered.

He doesn't see her.

She sees him again that night, his cocky smirk drawn across the inside of her eyelids as Charlene's fingers dig into Richard's mattress.

She doesn't quite call out his name, but she thinks it.


	2. Chapter 2

_a/n: Thanks for the feedback so far! I appreciate you guys sticking with me for this ride :)_

* * *

Kensi steps out of the car and onto Mulholland, the crime scene tape ahead of her fluttering in the wind. LAPD uniforms mill about, waiting for Midshipman Roth's car to be pulled back up the hill.

"Well?" Sam asks as Callen hangs up his cell, disconnecting from Eric back at ops.

Callen slips the phone into his pocket and slams the door. "Hetty says it's ours."

Sam nods toward the two guys in sport coats, arms folded as they impatiently wait for the crane to finish its task. "They know that?"

Callen walks ahead. "They will in a minute."

The agents flash their badges at a uniformed officer and slip under the yellow tape. Callen leads the three of them to the detectives, credentials still in hand.

"Gentlemen," he says when they are within earshot. "I'm Special Agent Callen, NCIS. This is Special Agent Hanna -"

"And that one's Blye," says a familiar voice from behind her. "Her specialness is up for debate."

Kensi turns to find a third detective resting on the hood of an unmarked sedan, arms folded across his chest as he observes the organized chaos of the scene. He's in slacks and a dress shirt, sleeves rolled up and top button undone. She assumes his tie and jacket are wadded up on the floor of his apartment. Her apartment is probably more accurate. The ubiquitous her.

Sam shakes his head. "Deeks."

He nods back, pushing off of the car and walking toward the group. "Sam."

"Crawled out from under that rock finally, eh, Deeks?" asks one of the detectives, turning his attention to the newest arrival.

"Just so I could see your shining face, Goldstein. You know how much I adore it."

"Piss off."

"Oo," Deeks sucks air through his teeth, "you know I'd love to, but it seems Bates actually wants this one solved. Unlike the last - what was it, four? five? - murders you clowns have drawn."

Kensi could swear Goldstein actually growls.

"As I was saying," Callen continues, "this case involves the death of a sailor in the US Navy. That puts it squarely in NCIS' jurisdiction. We'll go ahead and take it off your hands."

"Perfect," Goldstein snorts. He jabs his thumb toward Deeks. "Take him, too."

"Pass," says Sam, already following Callen to where the car is now resting, fifteen feet back from the edge of the embankment, a body laid out on a stretcher beside it.

Deeks brings his hand to his chest. "That gives me such a warm, fuzzy feeling."

Kensi takes a last look at Deeks before following the senior agents. Sure, he's mildly attractive and has some strange, irritation-fueled pull on her, and yeah, okay, maybe she pictures him sometimes when she shouldn't, but she doesn't think they actually need him in a professional capacity. She can let him twist in the wind. She doesn't feel bad about it.

Not _really _bad, anyway.

She pulls latex gloves out of her pocket and puts them on as she walks up to the body and takes in the damage, shaking her head to refocus her attention on the case.

"Okay, two gun shots: shoulder, ribs. This guy would have bled out even without the crash." Her eyes sweep to the vehicle, finding a splash of crimson on the exterior, just below the shattered window. "There's blood on the door handle."

Sam steps up to the car, bending over to inspect the smear. "That means he got shot before he got into the car."

"We need to find that crime scene."

Kensi follows Callen's gaze and her eyes land on downtown Los Angeles, sprawled out below them. It always seems so much bigger from up here.

"Sounds like a job for a detective," says Deeks, startling Kensi as he comes up beside her, his shoulder brushing hers for a moment before he puts more distance between them. "If only you knew where to find one."

She rolls her eyes, turning back to the scene. "If only."

"You think you can solve this, Deeks?"

He frowns, but amusement lights his eyes. "What, you don't want to team up again, Sam? After I saved your ass?"

"I had it under control."

"Is that what that was?"

"All right, Deeks," Callen says, holding back a smile, "you find the crime scene and we'll make this a joint op."

Deeks grins, snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves and stepping up to the body. "Challenge accepted."

It takes all of thirty seconds before he steps back and snaps the gloves back off.

"Give up already?" Kensi asks, eyes still scanning the body.

"Nope. Found it."

She abandons her search. "What, seriously? You found the crime scene from looking at the corpse?"

"Where were you expecting me to look? Google?"

In spite of himself, Sam snorts. "Okay, Colombo. Where to?"

"Dust off your spandex mini, Agent Blye," Deeks answers, his eyes twinkling. "We're headed to the hottest club in Hollywood." He turns to Sam. "Do you want to be a crime lord or a starlet? Can't be both. I'll tell you which one has more comfortable footwear, though."

"How do you know?"

"Well, typically woman feel obligated to -"

"The club, Deeks. How do you know about the club?"

Deeks reaches for the midshipman's wrist, wrapping it in the glove so he can hold it up without touching it. A lowercase b is printed in blue ink on the dead man's skin. "Door stamp for Balm."

"Okay, so Roth was there," Sam says, adding their newfound knowledge to the pieces they already have. "Something happens that puts him in Aubrey Darva's car and gets him shot."

Deeks sets the wrist back down. "Balm isn't just socialite central for the Aubrey Darvas of the world, there's a lot of bad guys hanging out there too. We should go ask for their security tapes and see if we can get some interviews, but my guess is no one will be very forthcoming."

Kensi shakes her head and turns her attention to the car as Callen pulls out his cell. Deeks may have found the first clue, but she's fairly certain they'll be carrying the weight of this "joint" operation the rest of the way.

"Eric? A nightclub by the name of Balm. We need to see its security footage."

Deeks throws up a hand. "Or we can call your top-secret lab and have your resident geniuses do it."

"Guys," Kensi says as she reaches through the passenger window, retrieving the items strewn on the floor and placing them on the roof of the car. "Shoes, clutch."

She opens the bag, finding exactly what she feared she would. She holds it up for the others to see. "Cell phone. Things a girl does not leave behind."

"And here," says Deeks, drawing the agents' attention to the driver's seat, "pink fabric. Same color Aubrey Darva wore last night."

Kensi raises her eyebrows.

"Okay," he admits, "so that one I googled."

"Let's see how well you search outside the web," Callen says, removing his gloves. "Find Aubrey Darva. Take Kensi with you."

Kensi bristles, stepping forward in challenge. "Wait, what?"

Callen ignores her and turns away, calling over his shoulder as he goes. "Sam and I are going to see what we can find on Balm. You two see what you can find on Darva."

Callen and Sam get into the Challenger and drive off, leaving Kensi and her protests, literally and proverbially, in the dust.

"So by 'joint op' he really meant 'NCIS op with one exceedingly handsome and quick-witted extra foot-soldier.'" Deeks' face scrunches up as he nods. "That makes sense."

"Ugh," she groans. So she's stuck with dead weight. He might be attractive, but he's also cocky. And the attractive doesn't even begin to offset the dead weight. Perfect. She stalks toward the sedan Deeks had been resting on earlier. "You better keep up."

"It's my car," he protests as she opens the door and slips into the driver's seat. "You can't drive my car."

She looks back at him, one hand on the wheel and the other on the handle. "Arrest me."

She slams the door and he drops his head back, either resigning himself to his fate or asking for a little divine intervention.

She's guessing it's probably both.

* * *

After interviewing Aubrey's stepfather, they make their way back to Deeks' Malibu. He doesn't even bother heading for the driver's side. Kensi's got the keys and he's betting she won't give them up voluntarily.

As fun as it might be, he figures getting in a scufffle with a fed in a multi-millionaire's driveway probably won't sit well with Bates.

He closes the door after himself as he slides into his seat. He shakes his head a little to get his hair out of his eyes. He glances over briefly at the click of Kensi's seat belt and finds his partner-of-the-moment looking straight back at him, an indiscernible expression on her face.

"What?"

"Nothing."

He grins. "You want me to do it again but in slow motion?"

"What?" She scoffs, turning away. "No."

"I don't mind," he assures her. He watches as a blush colors her cheeks. It's adorable.

"God, please, no. I don't want any of your fleas to land on me."

She's no longer looking at him, busily sending a text or checking her facebook app. He makes a mental note: Badass Blye likes his hair. He wonders if she likes anything else.

Before he gets a chance to wonder too much, Kensi's phone pings with a text. She checks it then tosses her phone onto the console and starts the ignition.

"We need to go to the station," he tells her as she pulls onto the street. "I've got to put a BOLO out for Aubrey and get in touch with Robbery about these break-ins."

She shakes her head. "I need to report back to the mission. See what Sam and Callen turned up."

"And you need to do that from your secret hidey hole? Your resident geniuses back at the top-secret lab haven't outfitted you with some type of new-fangled cellular communications device that will allow you to communicate remotely with the people back at base while you spend time apprenticing with a real detective?"

She looks at him in challenge. "Can't put out a BOLO over the phone?"

"Sure, I can. I just assumed you wouldn't want me to know where 'the misson' - dumb name, by the way, unless it's made out of tortilla chips - is actually located."

She shrugs, nonplussed, and turns her attention back to the road. "I can put a bag over your head."

"But then you'll muss my expertly-styled coif."

"It'll probably be an improvement."

"Five minutes ago I might have believed you thought that." He flicks his hair dramatically. She ignores him.

"Will your head be in the bag, too?"

She doesn't bother with a response.

He looks out the window, scanning the passing scenery. "So, south on the five, huh?"

She makes a hacky, annoyed sound and reaches back behind her. Her hand swings around and finds nothing but air.

"Can I help you?"

"I was looking for something to put over your head."

"What, literally?"

"Yes, literally."

"And you thought I'd have a hood or something just chilling in the back seat?"

"Or something."

"Interesting. So, you're the kind of girl who uses your car like a closet."

"No," she defends, pretty unconvincingly. He finds it fascinating that someone who lies so expertly in the field is such a horrible fibber. "I just like to have stuff on hand. You never know what you'll need."

"How about if I just cover my eyes with my hands?"

"How about if I temporarily blind you with some mace?"

Either she got a lot better at lying in the last ten seconds or she's totally serious. He scrubs his hand over his face. "I'll stick my head between my knees."

She smiles. "Deal."

* * *

She tries not to enjoy the feel of his lower back against her hand as she guides him into the mission, but she doesn't even come close to succeeding.

"Can I open my eyes now?" he asks as they make their way down the hallway. "Or is there some sort of detention room you're leading me to?"

She reluctantly removes her hand as they arrive in the bullpen. It's possible she forgot to let him free right when they walked in the door, but she's definitely not admitting it. "You can open them."

He blinks, adjusting his eyes to the flood of light, and looks around the room. "Huh."

"What?"

"I was joking before about tortilla chips but now I'm not so sure."

She rolls her eyes and drops down into her chair. Damn, now she's craving nachos.

Deeks starts toward Callen's desk. "Can I use the phone?"

She shakes her head. "Callen's. He'll probably be here in a second."

He pivots, pointing to Sam's in silent question.

"Sam's."

He nods to the fourth desk. "So this must be your partner's."

Her throat constricts as she watches him glance around the room, like maybe he's waiting for Dom to show up. It's silly and it's embarrassing and she hopes he doesn't notice.

"When do I get to meet her?"

Kensi pushes out of her chair and steps out from behind her desk, suddenly unable to be here a moment longer - unable to talk about it or explain.

"Use mine. I need to run up and check on the guys anyway. Just don't," she waves her hand over her organized clutter. "Don't touch anything."

She's up the stairs before he has a chance to respond.

* * *

Deeks hangs up with Doug in Robbery and scratches the back of his head, trying to make sense of his notes. It would be a lot easier if he had a -

A Thomas Guide lands on the desk in front of him, as if his thoughts had summoned it.

"Neat trick." He looks up to find Hetty beside him. He never even heard her come up.

"Mark all over it," she says. "I have more."

He nods his thanks and goes to the index to find the street he's looking for.

He turns to the page he needs and looks up at Hetty, standing there, observing him. He doesn't know whether to prompt her question or keep working like she's not there.

He's leaning toward the latter when she finally speaks.

"If you need your own workspace, you may use the desk next to Sam's."

He thinks about the way all the light left Kensi's eyes when he mentioned her partner. It's probably not something he wants to start poking around in.

"I don't want to get in anyone's way."

Hetty clasps her hands behind her back and looks across at the desk, expression unreadable as ever.

"You won't be in Agent Vail's way," she informs him. "Dom's been missing for some time now."

"I'm sorry."

She nods. "Thank you."

With one final glance at the empty desk, Hetty turns and walks away.

"Oh, and Mr. Deeks," she says without turning back, "dismount those horses before Kensi returns. She was serious about not wanting anything touched."

* * *

Turns out he's not exactly dead weight (though she gives herself a mental pat on the back for being spot-on about the attractive and cocky).

Throughout the course of their case he puzzles out a few riddles, breaks up a major robbery ring, helps rescue Kensi and saves Callen's life. Not bad for a detective.

Not that she's telling him that, of course.

And it was... not fun, exactly, but mildly amusing, maybe, to have him by her side. He was irritating, sure, but there were a few occasions that she can grudgingly admit to actually having enjoyed his company.

After she wraps up her informal debrief with Aubrey Darva, Kensi returns to her car (she'd switched them to her car at the first opportunity) where she'd left her temporary partner, a virtual puppy in the passenger seat. He's let himself out and gotten himself comfortable, reclining on the hood of the car, knees up and feet on the paint. Her first instinct is to swat him off - she just got the thing detailed and who knows what kind of crap he's got on those soles - but for some reason she can't quite bring herself to vocalize it.

"Gulls are coming in," he says as she approaches. "That means there's going to be wicked swell on the bay by morning."

She sets the coffee she bought him on his forehead, pulling off his aviators and setting them on his chest when she does. "You're a surfer, huh?"

He makes a face and removes the coffee. "You telling me you're not?"

"Nope."

He turns his attention from the sky, taking a sip of his coffee and inspecting her. She shifts a little under his scrutiny, unsure of what it is he's searching for.

"How can you live in Southern California and not be a surfer?"

She pushes off from where she's been leaning on the car and walks in front of it, making her way to the driver's side. "It's a daily struggle, but I've managed to somehow persevere."

"Huh." He turns back to the gulls. "Well, I'm going to be out for a while. Otherwise I'd offer to show you the ropes."

"Out?"

"LAPD op I've been trying to set up for months - all the pieces finally came together about an hour ago. Going undercover tonight."

She sweeps her hair off her face, suddenly inexplicably disappointed. "For how long?"

"Don't know. Cover's pretty deep."

She watches as he slides off the car and onto the pavement.

"Don't worry, Fern," he says, slipping his sunglasses back onto his face. "I'll leave some bad guys for you."

She smiles, in spite of herself, but he doesn't see it.

He's already in the car, waiting for her to take him back to his so he can drive right back out of her life.


	3. Chapter 3

Deeks has been under enough times to know this is normal - that there comes a point in every deep-cover when you're up to your elbows in cocaine, boxed in by crates of assault rifles, or staring at a trunk full of armor-piercing rounds and you just think... _fuck_.

It's not that he _can't _do this anymore, it's that he doesn't _want _to do this anymore, to _be_ this anymore. He doesn't want to spend another second looking at the dickhead face of Emilio Ortega as he regales a throng of mindless brutes with tales of a 'bitch' he taught a lesson and the joy that it brought him. Deeks doesn't want to listen to him crow about how loud she screamed, to see the scratch marks on Ortega's arm and laugh approvingly at how she had it coming. He wants to take the asshole by the throat and slam him up against the wall; send his knee into Emilio's balls and watch him crumble to the floor, gasping for air.

That's what he _wants _to do.

He closes his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath, relaxing his fingers when he realizes the hold he has on the newspaper is crumbling it. He sets aside the page he's been staring blindly at for the last ten minutes and sifts through the rest of some other patron's discarded newspaper, hoping to at least give the illusion that he's actually reading.

He pauses at an unfamiliar picture, a frown creeping across his face as he sees the print below it.

"Sorry I'm late," his handler says quietly, startling him out of his trance. He hadn't heard her slip into the adjacent booth. Their backs are to each other and other than the slight jump at her greeting he makes no indication he's heard her. "I see you finished the funnies and had to resort to a little heavier material."

He grunts in response, setting the page aside and locating the sports section.

He hears the waitress arrive and take Traynor's order - a glass of orange juice and half a bagel - and then disappear with a promise to return shortly.

Deeks waits until she's out of earshot before snapping the paper open in front of him.

"We're finalising another house purchase tomorrow," he says just loud enough for Traynor to hear. "I get the impression that it won't be the last."

"That's what you expected."

"I also get the impression that they'll never feel comfortable enough to let me in on any valuable info. Emilio's still keeping me at arm's length - just far enough that I'm on the outside of anything that would actually be useful, but close enough that I'm always within sight of him."

"You'll get your break."

He takes a sip of stale, cold coffee and tries to keep the hopelessness he feels from creeping into his voice. "I'm really starting to doubt that."

A moment of silence steals between them, feeding his foul mood. The booth trembles slightly beneath him as Traynor adjusts her weight.

"There's always the shipment." She ends her sentence with a slight upward inflection, almost turning it into a question.

"Yeah," he turns a page sharply, his frustration threatening his composure, "let's just forget about the underage girls that have to be drugged and ripped out of their homes for that to happen. I'm sure they won't mind the inconvenience as long as I manage to make my case."

The text in front of him blurs into unreadable grey and he listens to the waitress deftly deposit Traynor's order, the muffled clink of ceramic on formica betraying her length of time tied up behind the apron. She glides past Deeks as she threads her way through the sparsely populated diner toward one of the tables in the back.

It's silent for a few minutes before coins clatter on the table behind him and he feels Traynor slip out of her booth. She stops before moving past his table, turning back and bending down to grab something from the floor beside his feet.

"Excuse me," she says, and he folds the page he wasn't reading, revealing her bright smile as she holds out a slip of paper. "You must have dropped this."

"Thanks." He takes the paper and watches as she walks out the door, the overhead bell jingling behind her.

Once she's out of sight, he looks down at the paper she's given him. It's her receipt for breakfast, advising that her total comes to $2.78 and she should 'have a nice day!' Bethany, the waitress, has added a smiley face at the top.

He flips it over and finds an address scrawled hastily in a familiar hand.

Five minutes later, he drains the last of his coffee and slides out of the booth. He reaches across the table and snags the page he'd set aside earlier, working it down into a tri-fold before tucking it into his back pocket and heading out the door.

* * *

Jess presses the button to buzz him in and then goes to unbolt her front door, cracking it open slightly before making her way to the kitchen. She collects two tall glasses and fills them with ice and filtered water, returning to the living room just as Marty steps inside.

His eyebrows raise in surprise as he takes in her apartment. "Reuben never had me make house calls."

She snorts in amusement and hands him one of the glasses. "There are a lot of things Reuben never did for you."

"And this is for me?"

She drops onto the sofa, motioning for him to do the same. "Yes and no."

He obliges, settling in beside her, the cushions shifting under his weight.

She sips slowly from her glass before setting it onto the glass surface in front of her. Her body shifts back into her corner of the sofa and she shifts her gaze to Marty, focusing on him fully for the first time in a long time. Too long. She's met with him five times since the operation began, but before this afternoon she hasn't had a chance to look him in the eye.

She pulls her leg up and tucks it under her as she appraises him, waiting for some confirmation whether her instinct in bringing him here was right. The darkness she finds - the tiredness and hopelessness that's smothering his usual glow - tells her it was.

"Emilio's in Mexico for a few days setting up something on that end," he informs her. "He'll be back Wednesday."

She nods. "Then take a few days for yourself. Give yourself space; clear your head. Hell, rent a board and go surfing if you have to, but get your head back in the game, Marty. You're drowning."

He shakes his head. "I'll stay afloat."

She nods, sure that he will. There's a reason Marty always gets the jobs like this - a reason he's the undercover golden boy of the precinct. He gets things done. It's a combination of skill, determination and the complete disregard for his own personal cost that ensure he'll stay with any assignment he's given until the bitter end.

On this case that's exactly what she's counting on.

"When I was twelve," she says, clearing her throat to keep her voice even, "my cousin was my favorite person on the planet."

She stands, walking over to the bookshelf beside her television. Her eyes scan the frames she has displayed there, pausing on the small photo tucked into a large, framed picture of her parents.

She returns to the couch and holds it out to him. "Christina. That's her on the right."

He points to the girl on the left. "Which makes that little Jessica."

She nods.

"You guys look happy."

"We were." She drops back onto the couch. "Like I said, I loved that girl; idolized her. She was fourteen and so charismatic."

"I bet you were too."

"Not like Christina."

He tries to hand her the picture but she waves it off. He settles it in his lap but his attention turns to her.

"One night we were walking home from the store - we'd gone to buy some ice cream sandwiches - and a van pulled up beside us. Two guys jumped out and they, uh," she clears her throat again, "they tried to grab us."

She tries not to picture it, to tell the story as a set of facts she long ago committed to memory instead of reliving it. But she can't - the sound of Christina's soda can hitting the ground, the metal rolling into the street, still echoes in her ears.

"She was wearing these, these flip-flops - I remember them exactly because I thought they were so great. They were purple with these plastic rhinestone things right at the center where the strap goes between the toes." She remembers how jealous she was, how amazing she thought it would be to wear those shoes with matching purple toenail polish and a sparkly purple top. "They weren't made for running."

Marty shifts beside her, but she doesn't let herself look at him, doesn't let herself break stride.

"I managed to get away. Adrenaline and terror and the sound of her voice. She kept yelling at me, yelling for me to run." Jess sweeps angrily at a tear. "I didn't even look back."

She never turned to see Christina's face, but she can see it in her mind anyway, just as clearly as the plastic rhinestone between her toes.

"They found her body eighteen months later down in some town near Mexico City. The FBI made a big bust on a human traffic ring. She was one of the victims they found. One of the casualties that wasn't found in time." She finally turns to face him, knowing she has to make sure he hears her, that her message hits home. "This is important, Marty."

"I know."

"I'm not going to stop until these guys are behind bars," she says, hoping that he understands what she's trying to say, even when she can't actually say it. "I'm going to do whatever it takes. No matter what."

"So will I." He meets her gaze, jaw set in determination. "I promise you that."

He crashes on her couch a few hours later, day one of his involuntary hiatus from Dale John Sully. When he leaves the next morning, she gives him the picture - partly because she wants him to have the motivation, but mostly because she knows she needs to let it go.

She's already in this case too deep. The less emotion she has pulling her down, the better her chance of coming out of this in one piece.

* * *

"You good?"

Kensi looks up to find Sam standing beside her, the crowd having thinned without her noticing.

"Yeah." She nods too quickly and she has to swipe at a tear. "I'm good."

His eyes crinkle with concern but he doesn't voice it. Instead, he nods, allowing her the courtesy of keeping up the pretense.

She knows he's been here before, and that he's suffering too. She knows he'll have something to say, some way of trying to talk her into feeling better. But she doesn't want to feel better. She _can't._ Not now. Not here.

Not yet.

Callen appears on the other side of Sam, his mouth set in a thin line.

Sam looks to Callen and then to Kensi. "Ready to go?"

She shakes her head. "I'm going to stay a few minutes more."

He puts his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezes. "We'll see you there."

She turns back as they walk away, footsteps silent in the thick, green grass.

She holds herself together as the last few mourners make their way back to the road, but once she's sure she's alone her silent tears become sobs, and her shoulders start to shake.

* * *

It's mysterious, this pull Kensi has on him. It's not something Deeks can explain. He saw her partner's name in the obituaries and wanted to support her, to reach out and - what, give her a hug? It's ridiculous, he realizes belatedly, because she has support. She has an entire team of it, and coworkers and probably family and people she cares about and he's just... he doesn't even know what he is. An acquaintance, maybe. A friend? Unlikely.

But he wanted to be there for her. He wanted that for him - to make sure she is okay and to see it for himself.

Which is what brought him here to the cemetery where he lurks in the shadows like some sort of stalker, watching as a woman he barely knows breaks down in front of him, thinking she's completely alone.

As if she's reached the end of some pre-determined period of time, she straightens her spine, swiping at her cheeks to dry them as she pulls herself back into the picture she wants to present. He feels helpless watching it, feels like he doesn't have anything to offer, but something he can't identify compels him to at least try, drowning out the voice in his head instructing him to back away slowly and pretend he was never here.

She doesn't turn around when he steps up beside her, her gaze straight ahead when she speaks.

"Sam, I promise I'm fine."

"Well then my work here is done."

Kensi looks up, startled. Her wide eyes meet his. "Deeks."

"Hey, Fern."

She glares, but the streaks of makeup tracking down her face take away the weight of it. "I hate that name."

"Pretty sure you don't."

She swipes her fingers under her eyes. "It's the mascara."

He bites back a smile and scrunches his nose. "Maybe a little."

She sighs and shakes her head, returning her eyes forward. He follows her gaze and waits silently. It's a few minutes before she speaks.

"How was the op?"

"Still going. It's on pause for a few days while the target's out of town."

She spares him a glance. "And you thought you'd use your temporary reprieve to take in a funeral for a guy you never knew?"

"I saw his name," he says. "I wanted to pay my respects."

"You didn't know him." She repeats herself, as if he hadn't heard the first time.

"I know you." It's not enough of an explanation, probably, but it's all he can give her. It's all he has.

She's quiet for a moment before turning to face him. "Take me somewhere."

_Anywhere_, he thinks, but he doesn't say it. "You want me to drop you at the reception?"

She shakes her head.

"Somewhere else."

* * *

Deeks grabs the towel that's clutched under his arm, but Kensi drops onto the sand before he has a chance to spread it out.

He abandons the towel, tossing it aside before easing down next to her. She knows she looks ridiculous - her black dress crinkled, hair falling from her knot, shoes tossed aside and makeup smeared across her face. She thinks maybe she should care, but can't bring herself to do it.

When she glances at Deeks he's staring at the waves, a deep frown creasing his brow.

"You're thinking pretty hard over there," she says softly.

The crease disappears as he smiles. "It's been known to happen on occasion."

"Not very often, I imagine."

"Not very often," he agrees easily. "But probably more than you'd care to give me credit for."

She digs her toes into the sand, watching as the specks of white smother the dark black of her nails. "Is it a tough op?"

"Are there ever any easy ones?"

She flexes her toes and the sand falls away. "Some are easier than others."

"Then this would fall under the 'others' category."

A gentle wind blows loose hair across her face and she tucks it behind her ear. She's oddly comfortable with him, comfortable with silence between them, with his presence - which doesn't even make sense because he's Deeks. If he isn't a stranger, he's an annoying, frustrating acquaintance and certainly not someone she should be spending moments like this with. But she likes him here and she's inexplicably glad that he is.

"I saw him again before he died" she says, the words pushing their way out of her mouth like they've been waiting to escape. Maybe they have. "He thought he was rescued. He was -" She looks up at the horizon, like it's possible that if she tips her head at the right angle her tears won't spill over. "He was almost rescued. We were there, Deeks. We were _right there._"

"Then he wasn't alone."

"That doesn't matter."

"It does," he insists, looking at her, something more than understanding in his eyes. "Of course it does."

She wants so badly to believe that's true.

They sit there for the better part of an hour, silently watching the waves come in. Something - the rhythm, the monotony, maybe even his company - lulls her into a sort of muddled peace. She's not okay, but with each new breath she takes she's more convinced she will be.

Her stomach growls to remind her of the passage of time and she knows her phone will probably show several missed calls when she gets back to her car. Sam and Callen will be worried.

"I should get back."

He nods and takes a deep breath, like it's one that will have to hold him a while. "Me too."

She grabs her shoes and he's there above her, hand outstretched. She takes it.

"Thank you," she says as he pulls her to her feet, "for this, for today. For coming."

He releases her. "You're welcome. Thanks for the company."

She watches as he collects his shoes and towel. She looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time today.

"You going to be okay, Deeks? You're going to make it to the other side of this, right?"

He smiles, but his eyes aren't in it. "You're worried about me?"

"You were worried about me first!"

"True." He starts toward the parking lot and she falls into step. "I was worried. But you shouldn't be. I'm going to be just fine."

She thinks about offering to give him her number - in case he finds himself in need of some tech experts or an ex-Navy SEAL, but she thinks it's possibly insulting and maybe too forward and probably a silly thing to do.

After all, she's seen him in the field. He's right, she's sure.

He's going to be just fine.


	4. Chapter 4

Callen walks back into the bullpen and finds Kensi at her desk, chin in hand, staring blankly at the pages in front of her.

He shoots his partner a questioning look. Sam raises his eyebrows in a silent "what're you gonna do?"

Callen shakes his head and crosses to his chair. He drops a foil covered plate of breakfast on his desk. "Still studying those profiles, Kensi?"

"She likes riding in the back of my car," Sam says. "Can't beat the view."

"Or the witty conversation."

Kensi snorts. "I could do without the smell though."

"I smell like baby powder." Sam points to Callen. "_He_ smells like a gym towel."

"Right out of the dryer."

"Right out of the hamper."

Callen may be sleeping on the mission couch, but he's still bathing every day. He sniffs his armpits. They smell like the detergent stocked in wardrobe. Like spring or dancing rainwater or something. And maybe a little bit like bacon. Although the bacon deal might just be the proximity of his burrito. "I smell great."

Kensi's head lifts up off her hand. "You both smell fine."

"I know I do," Sam says. "That was never in dispute."

"I just," she pushes the files away, like maybe if she moves them far enough the decision will slide along with them, "I'm not ready for a new partner."

Callen looks at Sam again. This time the eyebrow raise is a "your turn." He stifles a sigh.

"Look Kens," he says as he drops into his chair, "no one wants to replace Dom - no one _can_ replace Dom," he corrects quickly to forestall her objection, "but it's not enough to just have three of us anymore. You need a partner. We need a full team."

She huffs.

"I made the case to Hetty that you should be involved in the selection process. But Kens, if you can't make a decision soon, the decision is going to pass right over you."

"I know I'm just -" she pushes out of her chair and hesitates a moment, "I'm just going to the range for a bit."

He shakes his head as she disappears down the hall.

"Advice?"

"Sure," Sam says, picking up his pen and pointing it at Callen. "Don't eat that burrito."

* * *

Kensi fires off another round, bullets easily hitting their mark, but she doesn't feel any release. The ear coverings muffle the sounds, but they don't stop the ghost of gunshots from echoing in her head.

She doesn't want to lose another partner.

She lost Chris; she lost Dom.

She almost lost Callen. She lost her dad. Her mom left; Jack left.

She sets her weapon down and lifts her glasses, swiping angrily at an errant tear.

She feels like she's dooming whoever she selects to be the next person on her own personal chopping block. Like the only way to ensure she won't lose anyone else is to never _have _anyone else - to not let anyone stay long enough to ever get their footing.

It's better this way anyway. She doesn't need a partner. She's Kensi Marie Blye: the best sniper in the district, honey-trap extraordinaire, fluent in four languages, expert in forensics, and just all-around bad-ass.

Hetty steps into her peripheral vision and Kensi tries to pull herself together, removing her headgear and straightening her spine.

Yeah, that's her - Kensi Marie Blye: bad-ass who spends her time in the range weeping into her safety glasses.

"Callen already talked to me," she says, clearing her throat. "You'll have my suggestion by the end of the day."

Hetty's lips purse a moment. "I got a call this morning from LAPD. They've lost contact with Detective Deeks."

"Wait, what?" the words stumble out of her mouth, her mind trying to process the unexpected shift.

"His handler is concerned that he hasn't called in. She's reaching out to people she thought he may have contacted. Have you heard from him lately, Miss Blye?"

How would she have? She didn't even give him her number. _She should have given him her number_. "No."

Hetty nods and turns toward the door. "I shall let her know."

Kensi reaches out and grabs Hetty's arm, pulling back suddenly when she realizes what she's done. "What are we going to do?"

Hetty raises her eyebrows. "We?"

"We can't just leave him out there by himself."

"LAPD is looking for him."

Right, of course, LAPD. "But thats..." she finds herself licking her lips as she nervously considers her next few words. "That's not enough. We have to help."

Hetty nods, revealing the barest hint of a smile. "Your team is already in ops, waiting to be briefed."

* * *

Deeks finishes checking the safehouse and tucks his gun into his waistband. It's an unremarkable two-bedroom in an unremarkable neighborhood, but owning a home with four walls anywhere in Los Angeles is pretty remarkable in and of itself.

He wonders what kind of budget NCIS has and how many of these they maintain. This plus all that tech stuff, the fancy hacienda, the late start time, the Kensi. Maybe if he makes it out of this shitstorm alive he should reconsider that liaising thing.

He makes his way to the fridge and grabs a bottle of water, dropping into a chair beside the kitchen table. His body hurts. He should have asked Hetty if she had a secret stash of prescription painkillers somewhere in her coffers. She probably does. He adds that to the pros list.

He drains the water bottle and tosses it into the sink, his head falling into his hands as he allows himself a minute of blankness - of nothingness, just so he can breathe.

Sleep. Hetty had told him to sleep.

Not exactly the cavalry he was looking for. But hey, at least he got a bottle of water out of it.

Minute up, he pushes himself to his feet and heads to the bathroom, running the tap. He splashes cold water on his face, rubbing at the bloodied bits with a washcloth he finds in the drawer. His suit looks fine, but his shirt's a mess.

He scrubs at the blood with the washcloth. The red drops smear into a red blur. He'll have to grab a spare somewhere. Unless...

He goes to one of the bedrooms and pulls open the dresser drawer. Empty. Okay, so that was wishful thinking. He'll hit up the Ross on Broadway on his way to wherever the hell he's going.

He shuts off the water and digs Dale John Sully's cell out of his pocket, scrolling through the contacts to find the name he's looking for.

He promised Jess he'd do whatever it takes to see this thing through and that's exactly what he's going to do.

"Hey, man, it's Sully," Deeks says when the call connects. "I need you to get me a meeting with Lazik."

* * *

Callen bundles Scarli into the backseat of the Challenger and Sam looks at Kensi, silently asking how she wants to proceed.

"Go ahead," she tells him, waving him toward his car. "I'll get a ride back with Deeks."

Sam glances over at the direction Deeks disappeared moments before, clearly wondering if she's making the right choice.

She's wondering that too. "I'm good, Sam. Go."

He gives her a nod and heads back to the car, sliding behind the wheel and pulling out of the lot.

Once she's alone, Kensi leans back against the bricks and takes a few moments to breathe.

Seeing Deeks just now was something she hadn't been prepared for. She hadn't been ready for the look of wild anger in his eyes, or the rage she heard pouring out through every ragged cry, or the certainty with which he drew his fist back each time it found its target, muscles coiling in anticipation of the next strike.

She realized in those moments that she doesn't really know him at all. She doesn't know exactly what he went through, what he's gone through, but more than that, she doesn't know how he reacts. She doesn't know how he handles the crazy, the painful, the intense situations. She doesn't really know how he handles any situations.

He rounds the corner, clearly startled to find her waiting for him. She pushes off the wall and steps out into his path.

"Walked it off?"

"Yeah." His eyes don't meet hers. "Sorry."

"Ready to get out of here?"

"They stick you on babysitting duty? I'm a big boy you know."

She shrugs, trying to convey a casualness she isn't really feeling. "I just thought you might want some company."

"Not really."

Okay, she wasn't prepared for that.

She squares her shoulders. "Well, you've got some."

"I'll drop you at your car."

She wants to protest, to tell him that she's here. To tell him they don't have to talk. They don't have to acknowledge each other, but she's going to keep him company. She wants to tell him she's going to be with him because he shouldn't be alone. Not after what he's been through. To tell him that no, she probably doesn't understand, but she'd like to. She wants to try.

But she's known him for a grand total of five days and she's not an expert on people, much less an expert on this person. So she stays silent.

Ten minutes and exactly zero words later, he drops her at her car.

* * *

Deeks crouches down, picking up the wilted bouquet and replacing it with a fresh one. The colors splash bright and cheery against the cold, sterile grey of the granite. It seems wrong, insensitive somehow - like he's intruding into the darkness with a light that doesn't belong.

But then, that's what you're supposed to do, right? Let the light in? Let a new day dawn?

He needs to stop listening to self-help tapes.

Deeks puts his hands on his knees and pushes himself up, keeping his eyes on the letters in front of him as he addresses his new companion.

"We've got to stop meeting like this."

He glances over then and finds Kensi frowning slightly. He smiles a little at her frustration.

"Your scent," he explains.

"My scent?"

"It's like sunshine." He thinks for a moment. No, that's not quite right. "Sunshine and gunpowder." Better.

She's still frowning. "So not, like, lavender or vanilla or something?"

"Hey, it's better than sweat and dirt."

"Is it? What exactly does sunshine smell like?"

He purses his lips as he thinks. "Indefinable."

"And yet identifiable, apparently."

He shrugs. "You smell like something bright and cheerful and, I don't know - powerful."

"Powerful smelling. Excellent compliment. I think my sixth grade boyfriend tried that one on me about 15 seconds before I clocked him."

"Lucky for me you've grown docile in your old age."

"Lucky for you I'm choosing to ignore your inept flirtation out of pity."

He shakes his head. "For someone so quick with the self-praise, you don't actually receive compliments very well."

"Well I - wait, what? Self-praise?"

He smirks.

She glares.

"So, what's up? You loitering in cemeteries these days?"

"I hear a rumor you'd be here."

"Stalking me, Agent Blye?"

"No."

He raises his eyebrows.

"I was just - you know, checking on you." She shifts a little, uncomfortable. "I uh, I wanted to make sure that you were okay after..." she trails off, but he doesn't need her to complete the sentence to know what she was referring to.

"I'm okay."

She nods. "Okay."

They stand there for a few minutes, engulfed in a sort of peace. He's surprised to see her - surprised she came. He was pretty clear the last time he saw her that he wanted to be on his own. She'd made a gesture - offered to support him and he'd refused, too caught up in his own chaos, too busy trying to stay afloat to accept or acknowledge that she was just trying to be a friend. He's not sure what convinced her to follow through now, but he's really glad she has. It's been a rough few weeks, and he thinks maybe it wouldn't have been quite so rough if he'd let her in.

"I'm sorry about how I handled things," he says, his voice cutting through the silence. "You were trying to help and I -"

"It's okay," she shakes her head, "I get it."

"And thanks, for, you know."

"Rescuing your stupid ass?"

"That's one way of phrasing it."

"Seriously, Deeks. Why didn't you stay in the safehouse? What on earth possessed you to -"

She trails off as he nods toward the headstone: _Jessica Angela Traynor_.

She's silent for a moment before asking, "She meant something to you?"

"She was my handler," he answers without looking up. But handler doesn't seem like enough. She was more than that. "She was the closest thing to a partner I'd had in a while. She was a good person, Kensi, and it isn't right."

"No," she agrees, "it isn't."

He shakes his head. "Sorry, that's maudlin."

"Well, we are in a cemetery."

"True." And he really doesn't want to be here anymore. "Want to get out of here? Grab some food, maybe?"

It isn't until the words are out of his mouth that his brain kicks in. It's four o'clock. Too late for lunch, too early for dinner. Definitely not the time you should be asking people out to eat.

He's about to apologize when she answers.

"So, this may seem like a really stupid thing, but there's this movie out and I've been -"

"I'd love to."

She smiles, a bright one that spreads out her cheeks and lights up her eyes and he feels less like an idiot for not even letting her finish the question.

"Okay." She nods.

"Okay."


	5. Chapter 5

Kensi steps out into the sunshine, shielding her eyes as they adjust to the sudden influx of light. "Well that was -"

"Awful," Deeks finishes for her, slipping on his sunglasses as they make their way toward the parking structure.

He looks ridiculously good. Totally not her type - blond, shaggy hair, scruffy unmanicured beard - but she could do things to him in those aviators. She can easily picture Deeks in a game of shirtless beach volleyball. In fact, if she could just pop open the buttons on that black dress shirt, slide it right off his shoulders...

She clears her throat and her mind. This is the kind of thinking that leads her to "testing" the new analyst by having her find an unlisted cell number and locating its GPS coordinates. She's got to get a handle on this before he files a restraining order. "It was horrible, wasn't it?"

"It was really, really bad."

"I'm so sorry I dragged you to that."

Deeks shrugs and gestures to the escalator, pausing momentarily so she can step on ahead of him. "It wasn't a total loss."

She looks back over her shoulder and shoots up a solitary eyebrow. "Oh no?"

He grins. "The Sour Patch Kids were great."

She shakes her head and turns back around. Here she is imagining running her hands across his bare, probably very firm chest and he's excited about a box of candy. It's supposed to be the other way around. She loves candy. She's skipped out on dates early to make sure she had time for a box of Twinkies before bed.

"But they weren't very filling," he continues, as they step onto their parking level. "You up for a meal?"

Or eight. She's starving. And really, really wants a Twinkie. "I could stand to eat."

He digs into his pocket and fishes out his keys, flashing her a smile as he beeps his car unlocked. "I know just the place."

* * *

Deeks pulls into a parking spot and looks over at Kensi. She's frowning.

"This okay?"

"Huh?" She looks over at him and does a half-assed fake smile thing. "Yeah, fine."

He gets out of the car, keys jangling in his hand as he waits for her to join him. When she does, he starts walking.

"You don't like the beach?" he asks as she falls into step.

She shrugs. "I thought we were going to have dinner."

"We are. Best fish tacos in the city."

She makes a sour face at the food truck ahead of them. It doesn't have the desired effect, however, because it's too adorable to deter him. "They also have regular tacos."

"You know there are things called restaurants."

"Come on, Agent Blye." He steps up to the window and turns to give her his winningest smile. "Live a little."

She grumps through his order and the wait for the tacos. He thanks the vendor and nods to the water bottles, indicating that Kensi should grab them. She does, following as he makes his way onto the beach.

He finds a quiet spot in the sand, near enough to the strip so the light won't totally abandon them after the sun goes down, but far enough from the fluorescent glare that they won't be overheard. He plops down, setting the taco trays beside him.

She joins him on the ground. "I live plenty, thank you."

Deeks digs through the tacos to find a beef one and trades her for one of the waters. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Give me an example."

"Today I -"

He shakes his head. "Work doesn't count."

She frowns again, taking a bite of her taco, her eyes on the horizon as the sun begins its descent.

He takes a few bites of his own, watching as the gears churn in her head. There's a slight breeze blowing wisps of hair across her forehead, the rest of it tied back into a ponytail. She's beautiful, even without the reflecting sunset, but something about the pink and orange glow makes her even more attractive. And somehow the way she's shoving the taco into her face actually adds to her charm.

"So you think," she says around a mouthful of food, "what my life is lacking is questionable seafood and sand in my underwear."

"Well, if the sand is getting in your underwear, maybe I'll have to rethink my previous assumptions about your lifestyle," he answers, already imagining the myriad of ways he could get sand in her underwear. He drains half his water as he considers the possibilities.

"I can practically see what you're thinking, you know," she mumbles, the entire taco now in her mouth.

He licks some grease off his fingers. "So you're picturing it too?"

She clears her throat and reaches for another taco. "Is this your place?"

"My place?"

"The place you go for Deeks time."

"Actually, I like to take care of Deeks time in the shower." He grabs a second taco. "Less mess."

She thwaps him on the arm. "Oh my god!"

He grins. "Sounds a lot like that, yeah."

"You're an idiot."

He shrugs and returns his attention to his dinner. They eat in silence for a while. Or rather, she does. He gets through his second taco and she's already on her fourth with no sign of slowing. He sips at his water as she finishes off the rest of the tray.

When she's done, she wipes her hands across her jeans and sips from her water bottle. "Tell me about your job."

"What about it?"

"Do you go undercover a lot?"

He tosses his empty bottle into the tray. "Exclusively if I can help it."

"Can you help it?"

"Not as often as I'd like." He leans back on his hands. "What about you? Much undercover?"

She shrugs one shoulder. "Sort of?"

"What does that mean?"

She shrugs again. "Nothing more than what you've seen."

"No deep cover?"

"Nope."

"Ever?"

"Never. Not me, anyway. The guys have, but - I guess I haven't had the opportunity."

He wonders about her undercover team - wonders what it would be like to always spend the night as Marty Deeks. To do what he does, what he loves, but with a partner, with resources, with the comfort of knowing you can always come up for air. "Do you want the opportunity?"

"I don't know."

He doesn't press, sure there's more to it, but unsure if she'd welcome the invasion.

"Do you ever consider doing anything else?" she asks after a moment. "Not being under so much?"

"But then who would catch the bad guys?"

She rolls her eyes. "Right, how silly of me."

"I do, sometimes, yeah," he answers honestly. "It's probably not realistic to think I can do it forever."

Sometimes he thinks he'd like a normal life. He could go into the station every morning in a suit and tie, be home most nights in time for dinner. But he has trouble picturing himself spending the majority of his days at the station, or even the majority of one day, working side-by-side with the rest of the precinct, coming home to a wife and kid and lasagne at the table instead of tossing a turkey burger down on the couch and unwinding while he talks at Monty about his day. He has trouble envisioning that type of future.

When he looks over at Kensi, she's sitting upright, arms wrapped around herself, eyes distant, and he thinks it's possible she's imagining a future of her own.

"Cold?"

She turns and nods. "A little, yeah."

He debates edging closer and wrapping an arm around her. Instead, he stands and reaches out with an open hand. "Let me take you home."

* * *

She steps out of the car and into the night. The wind has picked up, and her hair slips across her face. She sweeps it back behind her ear and closes the door behind her. Deeks is sliding out of the driver's seat.

She'd cross her arms in protest if she didn't need to keep swiping at her hair. "I don't need you to walk me to my door."

He walks beside her anyway. "I didn't for a second think that you did."

"And yet..."

"Hey, I'm a gentleman. I can't just turn that off."

She tamps down on a smile. She may not need him to walk her to her door, but there's a part - albeit a very, very small part - that wants it. She may not be comfortable with the damsel role, but she's enjoying his company and is willing to make a few sacrifices to extend it.

"There you are," he says, when she stops in front of her door and pulls out her keys. "Delivered safe and sound."

"My hero."

"I'm a civil servant, ma'am. Just doing my duty."

She shakes her head and unlocks the door, opening it slightly and turning back around. "Thank you for tonight, Deeks. It was nice."

He nods. "Thanks for checking up on me."

"You're welcome."

"Shall I give you my phone number or should I assume you already have it?"

She blushes, she's sure of it. "I've got it."

He unlocks his phone and hands it to her. "My tech guys don't do personal errands."

She takes it, punching in her number. Her fingers dance over the letters of her name, but she pauses just before handing the device back to him. She taps the screen a few times, beginnings of a grin starting to unfurl at the corners of her mouth as the flashing cursor slips backwards over her name.

"I knew you liked it," he says as he reads the display.

"Just trying to prevent any more ridiculous names you might have been tempted to go with."

"Like Kiki?"

"Exactly."

He hums on a smile. "So, Kensikins, about those restaurant thingies you spoke of..."

"Yes?"

"I was thinking you'd like to take me to one."

She barks a laugh. "Oh, I would, would I?"

He scrunches his nose and nods. "You would."

Her hair slips out from behind her ear again, but before she can get it his fingers are brushing over her cheek. Her breath catches and she's fairly sure he's able to hear her heart pounding as it tries to jump right out of her chest.

He tucks the hair gently behind her ear and lets his hand trail slowly back down to his side. "It's a date then."

"It's a date."

He turns and walks to his car without looking back.

She steps into her apartment, closes the door, and releases the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding until after the deadbolt slid home. Images are flashing through her mind too quickly for her to focus and she knows sleep will be a fleeting thing the remainder of the night.

* * *

"Really? I can't like," Deeks gestures toward the hallway with his thumb, "go get a smoothie or something? I'll be back in fifteen. Twenty, tops."

She shakes her head.

"Great." He sighs and slouches further into the chair. He's going stir crazy here. It's been almost a month with no undercover ops and he's been riding so much precinct pine he's got a splinter in his ass. But today - today was going to be a good day. Today Kensi was going to take him to a restaurant. Today was not supposed to include getting called into the lieutenant's office and spending his lunch break watching Bates' secretary try her best to fight off hyperventilation.

"Sorry, Marty."

"Not your fault, Margaret. What's going on, anyway?"

The phone on her desk rings. Again. "Hostage situation at the Navy recruitment center," she says before holding up a finger and answering the call. "Lieutenant Bates' office."

Navy recruitment center. Interesting. So, odds are -

"Deeks!"

Deeks pops up out of his chair and follows the sound of Bates's voice into the room.

"So, hostage situation," he says as he steps inside. "That sounds pretty dire. Need an extra hand?" He holds up his hands. "Or two?"

Bates, predictably, isn't amused. "Do you know what I hate more than a hostage situation, Detective?"

Deeks considers answering 'smiles' or 'joy' but in a rare display of good judgment he goes with, "Nothing, sir?"

"Missiles." Bates tosses a folder across his desk. "According to the FBI, we've got a set of spike missiles here in Los Angeles."

He slides the folder closer and flips it open. "Have the Feds tried airing some of those Travel Utah commercials? They're pretty enticing. Might help move the problem right out of our jurisdiction."

"Perfect. Maybe they'll move you out of my jurisdiction."

He turns to the next page. This guy looks like a major doofus. He loves it when the criminals are doofuses. Makes the job so much more fun. "You trying to get rid of me, sir?"

Bates points to the file. "After you get these missiles."

"Perfect." He closes the file and tucks it under his arm. "Incentive."

* * *

"Twenty bucks says he banged her."

"Renko!' Kensi follows her partner as he weaves through a growing crowd of people outside the recruitment center.

He turns back, grinning. "What? I'd bang her."

She shakes her head. "She does seem like your type."

"Hot?"

"Criminally insane."

He laughs, holding the crime scene tape up and letting her duck under first. They flash their badges at a uniformed officer when he comes up to stop them. It's only their second week together as partners, but they're finding a rhythm. She's still going to have to get a permanent partner eventually, but for now she's content to fall back onto familiarity and completely ignore the inevitable decision that looms in the future.

"There," Renko says, pointing. She jogs a little to catch up with him as he makes his way to join Sam and Callen.

"Let's just say she's the kind of person who chooses the mission over the partner," Callen is saying as they approach.

Renko gives Kensi an "I told you so" look. She rolls her eyes.

"All right, well, let me get the lay of the land, see what I can dig up," Sam says. "And somebody needs to see what we can do about getting LAPD to back off and let us take over."

"I'm on it," Kensi says without thinking.

Three heads swivel her direction.

"I mean, I can take care of it, but only if you need me to. Or not, whatever."

Sam gives Callen a look that she can't read but she's pretty sure it's not one she wants exchanged. She really wants to kick herself. Repeatedly. Combine this with her volunteering to liaise with LAPD at the Rehme house last week and she's really starting to make an ass of herself.

"Okay, Kensi," says Callen, nodding toward the tent. "Let's go."

They make it about two feet before he asks, "So, you feeling especially social these days? Or maybe you're attracted to a particular shade of blue?"

"Just trying to work on my interagency relations."

Callen smirks. "I bet."

* * *

Deeks arrives on scene behind a pair of cruisers, slipping on his jacket after he steps out of his car. A short guy in a fancy suit is shuffled over toward the first cruiser and stuffed in while a familiar group of feds is gathered by some shipping containers.

He runs his hand through his hair and crosses over to the NCIS team.

"Well, well, well," Sam says when he sees him approach.

"Sam, Callen," he nods to the agents. "Guy I don't know," he nods to the third before his eyes settle on Kensi. "Kensi."

"Hey," she says back, breaking eye contact as quickly as possible.

"I'm Mike Renko, by the way," says the guy beside Kensi, his hand out for Deeks to shake.

Deeks drags his eyes from her and takes the offered hand. "Detective Marty Deeks, nice to meet you. You must be Kensi's partner."

"I'm taking her for a spin."

"I'm sorry, you're -"

"Just filling in," Renko says, smiling, hands slipping into his pockets as he rocks back on his heels.

"Gotcha. So," Deeks clears his throat, "I hear you guys had quite a day. My intel suggests this is the second time you've lost the lady with the shotgun. She must be particularly slippery."

Renko gives Callen a look that makes Deeks wonder what it is he's missing, and Kensi's looking anywhere but at him.

"We got the missiles," Sam says, all business. "That's what you're here for."

Deeks nods. "One out of two ain't bad. Better luck next time?"

Sam grunts and follows Callen, who has apparently decided the meeting is over. They're doing a better job of hiding whatever this is than the two junior agents, but they're still telegraphing that something's going on and they don't want him to know about it.

"I'll just get those witness statements later then," he calls after their departing forms. He turns to the remaining agents. "Rough day?"

Renko shrugs. "I like it rough."

Deeks raises his eyebrows. More than he wanted to know.

"Kensi, can I, uh..." He trails off, unsure of how much to say in front of her teammate.

"Yeah, sure." She digs in her pocket and retrieves her keys, tossing them to Renko. "Be right there."

"Does this mean you're going to let me drive?"

Her eyes narrow slightly in response.

"Yeah, didn't think so."

She waits until he's out of earshot to ask, "Making friends, huh?"

Deeks shrugs. "I'm not worried about getting people to like me."

"Any people?"

"Most people."

"I hear that's a great plan for undercover operations."

"Well, I do appeal to a certain criminal element."

"It's the hair."

"It's the charm."

She makes a face.

"Okay," he concedes, "it's partly the hair." He digs his hands into his pockets. "So, about tonight."

"Cancelling?"

"Postponing." He glances briefly back at the cruisers. "There's a douchebag to interrogate and there's going to be a lot of cleanup. The paperwork alone is going to take me well into the evening."

"Okay, yeah, of course." She nods a little too fervently. "I've got paperwork, too."

"Right, yeah. So, I'll give you a call in a few days?"

She nods with a too-tight smile and turns to leave.

She hasn't even fully turned her back to him when his hand reaches out, snagging her arm. "Hey, wait a second."

She swings back around, eyes widening when he leaves his hand on her arm and guides her back toward the side of the nearest shipping container.

He stops as soon as they're blocked from view.

Her eyes are still wide. "What are you -"

He pulls her to him and presses his lips to hers. He meant it to only last a second, but suddenly her fingers are clutching the front of his shirt and somehow his hand has come up and tangled in her hair and, okay, wow, he definitely wants this to last more than a second.

Their lips come apart and she pulls her head back, putting some distance between them.

"I, uh," he rubs his hand over his mouth, "I wanted to do that the other night and then, well, I didn't and I've sort of been thinking about how much of an idiot I was, so, yeah." He doesn't know whether to be discouraged or encouraged by the amused expression on her face. "Call you tomorrow?"

She nods, breathing out a response almost too quiet for him to hear.

"Tomorrow."


	6. Chapter 6

Sam looks at Eric. "I'm assuming the shooter was dressed as a police officer and not actually LAPD."

"Motorcycle was reported stolen yesterday."

Callen watches as Michael Barnes' final moments play out across the screen. Barnes battles with the faux-officer, pushes a blonde aside, and -

"He was protecting the woman."

Hetty nods. "So the question is: who is she and what's in the envelope."

Renko stage-whispers to Kensi, "That's two questions."

Callen listens to Nell's debriefing on Jillian Leigh, his eyes still focused on the screen. Identifying her is great, but they still don't know anything about the shooter.

"No facial rec on this guy?" he asks, once Nell and Eric have wrapped up.

Nell shakes her head. "No hits."

He nods, still frowning at the screen. "Play it again, Eric."

They're on the third viewing when Kensi says, "Freeze it."

He does, pausing the image as the shooter braces himself, anticipating another blow from Barnes.

"There," Kensi says, pointing to the screen. "He may have left a print on the barricade."

Nell nods. "I'll contact LAPD and see if they can -"

"No," Callen says, pushing off from the table, "that's probably not necessary. I think Kensi knows someone over there."

* * *

"_The print on the concrete barrier belongs to a man named Assan Rafiq. He's a known Somali Al Qaeda member and on the FBI's wanted list_," Deeks says over the line. "_I just sent you the file_."

Kensi watches her inbox, shifting the phone to her other ear as she waits for the email to arrive.

"_I had fun last night_," Deeks says.

She smiles and clicks on the message. "Me too."

Renko leans into her space and says into the phone, "Me three!"

She shoves him just hard enough to move his butt off the edge of her desk and dislodge him from his perch.

"Sorry," Kensi says to Deeks, making shooing motions at her partner until he retreats to his own space.

Deeks laughs. "_No, that's cool. Maybe he can come along next time_."

She scans the file, frowning at the picture. "Next time?"

"_Friday?_"

She smiles. "Friday is good."

"_You don't actually have to bring Renko_."

She clicks into the home directory and finds the file from this morning's briefing, selecting the surveillance footage and bringing it up onto her screen. "Oh, well, in that case, maybe I'll have to pass."

"_And here I was planning on taking you to a burger place that serves milkshakes in frosted tins_."

"I'm back in." She freezes the image and drags it beside the photo from the file Deeks sent.

"_I thought so_."

"You think you know me."

"_Not as well as I'd like to_."

She shivers a little at the words, at what they suggest. She thinks about last night when he dropped her off at her apartment - the way his lips felt against hers, his fingers warm against her waist - the chill left behind when he'd stepped away. She clears her throat and refocuses on the images on her screen. "This photo of Rafiq, that's not -"

"_The guy who killed Barnes? No, doesn't look like it_."

Renko's phone drops loudly into its cradle and he crosses back over to Kensi, returning to his previous resting place atop her desk.

"That was Callen," he says, shifting his weight as she tugs a file out from under him. "They found the doctor at the clinic with a bullet in his chest."

She looks again between the two images of the same man. "So we've got a dead plastic surgeon and a shooter who doesn't look like his mug shot."

"_Would you like me to solve this mystery with my expertly-honed detective skills?_"

Her eyes meet Renko's. "Nope, we've got it."

* * *

"So," Renko says, eyes flicking between the figures spread out around him as he adjusts his bowtie and tugs at his cuffs. "Night out?"

Callen and Sam look to be considering it, but Kensi shakes her head. "I'm going to get changed and go home to a bubble bath and a tub of Rocky Road."

He doesn't believe that for a second and waves a dismissive finger at her. "You're going to make the most of that up-do and go see that detective of yours."

Sam and Callen's eyebrows raise. In unison.

"I don't have a detective," she insists, still not convincing him, "and I am going home."

"Why don't you bring him out with us?" Renko suggests, gesturing to the guys. "He might clean up real nice."

As if on cue, Sam and Callen's eyebrows race up toward their foreheads in seemingly mocking disbelief. It's definitely disbelief and he's pretty sure about the mocking.

"Hey, anything's possible," he offers.

"Sure, if you find the right groomer," Sam says.

"It worked for Callen. I still remember that getup he was wearing the first time I met him."

"Goodnight, guys." Kensi shakes her head and heads toward wardrobe, calling over her shoulder as she goes. "Don't let Hetty see you leaving the building in her suits!"

"And where might you be going?" Hetty asks from behind him, making Renko practically jump out of the suit he had been half-hoping would convince the bouncer at Greystone that his lack of celebrity was not grounds for an automatic rejection.

_That was malicious, Kensi_, he thinks. _Just plain malicious_. "We thought we'd go to -"

"Wardrobe," Callen finishes for him, ushering them in the direction Kensi had disappeared. "We thought we'd go straight to wardrobe."

* * *

Kensi does, in fact, go home and take a bubble bath. It's been a long and eventful day, so she dumps in extra bubbles and even lights a few candles. It's a very romantic setting for her, made even better by the carton of Rocky Road that had escorted her in from the kitchen. She was planning on using a bowl but when she saw how much was in the bottom she figured it was easier just to dig straight in. There is a 100% chance she's going to eat it all anyway and dropping a carton on the floor while mostly submerged in the tub is going to create much less mess than dropping a bowl. Win, win.

After a very peaceful and sugary ten minutes, she scrapes the bottom of the container with her spoon. When she's sure she's gotten every last drop of nearly-melted ice cream she tosses the container and the spoon onto the bath mat and reaches for her cell.

She checks her email, decides that no, she doesn't need a 20% discount code for Victoria's Secret and types out a text.

_I saved the city at work today._

She sets her phone to shuffle and puts it on the side of the tub, sinking down until her shoulders are submerged and closing her eyes.

Three songs later, her music fades out as a text pings. She smiles, pausing the music as she flicks up Deeks' reply.

_Oh yeah? I got a butt cramp._

She snorts. _So we were equally productive._

_That sounds about right. _

She's about to respond when the bubble pops up, telling her he's working on another retort.

_So what did I almost die of today, aside from boredom?_

_Sarin gas._

_Oh, that old thing?_

The bubble pops up again, then disappears for a second before coming back, like he wrote something and then deleted it before starting again. The response that comes is not nearly as elaborate as she expected considering the time it took to construct.

_I'm glad it all worked out._

_You're glad you're not dead._

_Very, thank you. And thank the guys, too. Give Sam a big hug for me._

_:P_

_No, no don't give him tongue. He and I aren't to that level quite yet._

She cringes. _Wow, I did not need that mental picture. _

She hits the release with her foot and the water starts down the drain. She drops her phone onto the bath mat beside the remains of her dessert and steps out of the tub, yanking her towel off the rack. She's in the middle of drying when the phone pings with another text, so she finishes in a hurry, snatching it up as she pads into her bedroom, not quite dry but close enough.

She reads the display as she digs her pajamas out of her dresser.

_And with that, I should call it a night. Sleep well, Princess._

She sighs and drops down onto her bed.

_Night._

* * *

"It could have been worse," she says, totally unhelpfully, dunking her spoon into her shake.

"Sure, yeah, okay. That makes it better." Not better at all. Still pretty damn embarrassing, even if he did come out of it with all his limbs.

"Sure you don't want to order a raw steak or something?" she asks, mouth full of triple chocolate chunk milkshake. She's trying not to laugh. He's sure of it.

"No, no," he presses the cold tin against his swollen cheekbone. "This is great."

"Now, wait, remind me -"

"Because it's been all of thirty seconds -"

"Was she sixty-seven or -"

"She was sixty-eight. She was a fierce and crazily agile sixty-eight." And, like, scary strong too. With a mouth like a sailor and bones that cut like glass.

"Right, agile."

Okay, he's definitely going to have to wipe that smirk off her face. He sets the tin onto the table and pulls out his wallet, tossing a couple bills down to pay for their meals.

"Come on," he says, sliding out of the booth.

She looks down at her milkshake then back up at him. "But I'm not done!"

"Doesn't matter. The gauntlet has been thrown. We've got to go."

"What gauntlet?" She's still clinging to the tin. "Go where?"

"To prove to you how badass I am."

She laughs. A huge, honking, terrifying laugh. He's enthralled. It's horrible and adorable all at once.

When she gets a hold of herself she asks, "And how are you going to do that? We going to hit up a retirement home so you can challenge another sexagenarian to a duel?"

"Very funny. No, I'm challenging _you _to a duel."

"But I didn't bring my rapier."

He's not sure if she's joking. "You have a -" He shakes his head. "Never mind. You have your sidearm?"

"On a date?"

He raises his eyebrow.

"Okay, yes," she admits, "but only because I'm wearing jeans."

God damn, he finds that sexy. "Are you accepting my challenge?"

"Is your challenge for me to shoot you? Because I'm pretty sure I'm up for it, but I'm going to need just one more minute to think of any possible negative moral implications."

"Ha. Ha." He gestures toward the door. "Firing range?"

She releases her tin of milkshake and grins. "Bring it on."

* * *

"That was so not a clear victory."

Kensi slips her key into the lock. "Yes, it was."

"You didn't get as many points as I did," he defends, leaning against the wall beside her door. "Nineteen is lower than twenty-six."

She raises an eyebrow.

He throws up a hand. "A groin shot isn't incapacitating to an old lady!"

"Oh, is that who I was pretend shooting?"

He gives her a look as she opens the door.

"I must have missed that."

He drops his head back and sighs. "You really are very frightening."

"Frighteningly amazing?"

"Frighteningly terrifying."

"That doesn't sound like a compliment."

"Doesn't it?"

She scowls and he smiles.

They're silent for a minute, the keys heavy in her hand. She had a good time tonight. Despite the fact that she did actually dominate, she was really impressed with his marksmanship. He's a great shot, better than she expected and certainly better than most. She hasn't seen him in the field much, but she can put together the pieces and see that he really is a damn good cop. LAPD is lucky to have him.

And more than that, he's good company. Great company, actually. She doesn't remember the last time she smiled so much - laughed so much. She feels lighter, more relaxed. She thinks she could get used to this.

"Want to come in?"

"Want to promise me you won't take any groin shots?"

Her eyebrows raise slightly, and a smirk spreads across her face. "Are we still talking about the shooting range?"

"What else would we be talking about?"

She punches his shoulder.

"Okay, okay. I surrender. Take me in, Agent Blye."

She pauses a few seconds, pretending to mull over whether she should take him with her.

"Uh oh. Too much discussion about my groin?"

"Do you ever stop talking?"

"Rarely, but there are a couple of activities I can think of that might keep my mouth closed."

She gives him an exaggerated eye roll, but she's pretty sure he knows she's actually enjoying herself. Her hand works the door handle and she pushes it open. The second she crosses the threshold her heart starts beating faster, like it just now realized what's about to happen.

She crosses the living room, her feet taking her straight to the kitchen. "Coffee?" she asks.

"No, thanks."

"Tea?"

"I'm good."

She opens the freezer and starts digging through it. Damn it. She's out of ice cream. How can she be out of ice cream? She grabs a box of popsicles from the very back and looks inside. One left. She takes it out, tossing the box to the back of the freezer and closing it before offering the treat to Deeks.

He shakes his head. "You know we already had milkshakes, right?"

She removes the wrapper. "I didn't get to finish mine."

"Ah."

She frowns at the popsicle; grape and covered in freezer burn. No wonder it was still in the box. She crosses to the sink and runs it under the tap water to wash off the ice and goo. When it's passable and about half it's original size, she pops it in her mouth and turns back to Deeks.

He's still in the doorway of the kitchen, looking amused.

"What?" she asks, the popsicle muffling the word.

He steps toward her. "I think I changed my mind."

She swallows. Hard. "About the popsicle?"

He nods, resting his hip against the counter beside her.

She pulls it out of her mouth with a pop and holds it out for him. "Only one left, sorry."

He takes it. "I'll make do."

And then his tongue is out and his lips are wet and she realizes she made a critical error using this particular thing as a distraction from the knot of anticipation forming in her chest.

He slowly pulls it past his lips, a soft sucking sound escaping as he does. He hands it back.

She takes it, her fingers brushing his on the wooden stick and she damn near shivers. God, this is so ridiculous.

She jams the popsicle back in her mouth and sucks hard, trying to think of something, anything besides the energy crackling between them.

She takes the popsicle out of her mouth and reads the joke printed on the bottom half of the stick. She clears her throat. "What can you steal and not get in trouble?"

She looks up and he reaches out, brushing his thumb against her bottom lip.

"Purple," he says, eyes never leaving her mouth.

His hand falls and she runs her teeth across her lip to fill the void.

Her voice cracks. "You can steal purple?"

"Your mouth is purple."

"So's yours."

And then he's pressed up against her, his lips on hers. She drops the popsicle in the sink behind her and it lands with a _thunk _as she brings her hand up to tangle in his hair. His tongue slips into her mouth and she's pretty sure she's changing her mind about artificial grape as a flavor.

His hand is sliding up the back of her shirt, fingertips skidding across her skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He mumbles against her lips, "Second base."

She pulls back, her hand against his chest. She blinks him back into focus. "Wait, what?"

"What can you steal and not get in trouble," he says, fingers still dancing along her spine. "Second base."

"Oh." The joke. _Thank god_.

He's grinning. "You looked worried there for a second."

"I was not worried!" she scoffs.

She was totally worried. Really, really, worried.

"There's no need," he says, flicking open the clasp of her bra and leaning back in. She feels the heat of his next words against her lips. "I plan on making this night a home run."


	7. Chapter 7

Deeks smiles brightly. "Morning, Sunshine."

"You lied to me."

"Hey, I never said I was fantastic," he says, perching next to her on the bed, "but I think I'm getting better. I suppose we can keep practicing though, if you really feel that's necessary."

She squints up at him.

"That wasn't what you meant?"

She grunts and smashes her face into the pillow.

His fingers trail down her bare back, making little circles above the bedsheet that's covering her waist.

She lifts her head long enough to turn it to face him. He's shirtless, wearing only a pair of boxers; his hair is rumpled from sleep. It's the third morning in a row she's woken up like this and she doesn't think she'll ever get tired of it. It's a terrifying thought. She's known this man for only six months, been dating him for five weeks, and already finds him fitting into places in her life that she's purposefully left empty for years. He's squeezing in through the cracks and she's afraid once he gets inside he won't get out.

Even worse is the possibility that he will.

She rolls over to face him, putting an end to his soft ministrations. "You said you were going surfing this morning."

"I had better things to do."

"Like?"

"What? Staring at your gorgeous face while you snort like a piglet doesn't count?"

She'd punch him in the thigh if she could muster the energy. "I do not snore."

"I never said 'snore.'"

"'Snort' isn't better." She sniffs the air, pushing herself to sitting, the sheet clutched to her chest. "Wait, do I smell bacon?"

"Oo this is awkward." He grimaces, sucking air through his teeth. "Do pigs eat pig?"

This time she does find the strength to drive her fist into his leg.

"Oh, Jesus, ow!" He retreats off the bed. "No need for violence. There are pork-free alternatives. I made pancakes and eggs."

Her stomach growls at the thought. "Scrambled?"

"With extra cheese."

She reaches out, snagging his hand and pulling him back into bed. He braces himself with his arms to keep from falling flat on top of her. The weight of him is becoming familiar, comfortable. She's worried he's getting too close - worried of what he might find, but it's times like these she thinks there's a chance it's worth the risk.

She slides her hand down his back and lets her fingertips slip just inside the elastic waist of his boxers. His lips curl slightly upwards in a faint smile that reminds her he has a hard time taking anything seriously. She considers abandoning her plan of attack and wrenching his boxers up instead of working them down, but the growing pressure driving into her thigh squashes the impulse.

"Extra cheese, huh?" The heat of her breath reflects off his ear, reminding her how close they are.

He grunts in response, his hands drifting down her arms.

She squeezes him. Not hard, but enough to momentarily bring his gaze back up to meet her own.

"Then we'd better make this quick."

* * *

Deeks blinks at his computer screen, eyebrows raised, like maybe if he lifts them high enough his eyes might actually stay open without the extraordinary effort he has been making for what seems like impossibly long hours - as if he might be capable of physically overcoming the mind-numbing boredom that's resulting from his current assignment.

It doesn't work.

He scrubs his hand over his face and yawns. Yeah, he's got to get some coffee.

He reaches for his mug and pushes out of his chair, making his way to the carafe in the break room. It's not the world's best coffee, but it's certainly better than the stuff that comes out of the vending machine downstairs, so he'll take it.

He's hunched over, scanning the fridge to try and locate his carton of soy milk when his cell buzzes. He pulls it out of his back pocket and brings it to his ear. "Deeks."

"_Hey._"

"Kens," he says, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder so he can move aside the Leaning Tower of Tupperware. "Hey."

"_Sorry to bother you at work_."

_You're never a bother_, he thinks, pushing past a pair of paper lunch sacks, but goes with the less cheesy, "It's no problem. What's up?"

"_I need an LAPD favor_."

He finds his milk and pulls it out, almost knocking over an open container of yogurt in the process. "Then you've called the correct one of your many suitors."

"_Well, there is Joe in Homicide - have I mentioned him?_"

He pours some soy into his mug and returns it to the fridge, shifting his phone back to his hand when he's done. "You have not."

"_He was my first choice, but I figured this was too menial a task for him_."

"Good call." He takes a sip of his coffee and rests against the counter. "Homicide guys aren't into the grunt work."

"_But you SIS guys really relish in the mundane._"

"Exactly."

Deeks hears Renko talking in the background. "_Can you flirt later and go ahead and get to the point before these guys regain consciousness? The dude with the purple nutsack is going to be particularly unpleasant and I'd appreciate a little backup_."

Deeks doesn't know where to start. No, wait. He knows _exactly_ where to start. "Purple nutsack?"

She sounds annoyed. "_I wanted to take him out_."

"You -" He grimaces, unable to even finish the sentence.

"_I kicked him in the groin_."

"_Tell him about the part where he may be NSA_," Renko interjects.

Deeks sets down his coffee. "You kicked an NSA agent in the balls?"

"_He isn't NSA. He clearly had an accent_."

"_He did not have an accent!_" Renko protests.

Kensi snorts. "_Don't you know the difference between French open syllabic organization and English trochaic speech patterning?_"

"I hope you're not talking to me because I understood maybe half those words."

"_He didn't even have a weapon out!_"

"Oh jeez, Kens."

"_I'm telling you, he's French intelligence and he has no business operating here. He was impersonating a federal officer!_"

Deeks shakes his head. "I'll send a few uniforms over to pick those guys up before we have to add assaulting a federal officer to the list of charges."

She snorts again. "_I'd like to see him try._"

"Just in case."

"_Thank you. And can you possibly keep them a while? I'm assuming they've got diplomatic immunity, but we need a little time._"

He nods even though she can't see him. "Yeah, sure. I'll put them in County. They'll be lucky if they're out by Christmas."

"_Thank you_."

"Just trying to stay on your good side."

* * *

Nell watches as Kensi leans over, lining up her shot. She inhales deeply and then slowly releases the breath, sliding the well-worn stick forward in concert with the exhale and starting the desired chain reaction. She smiles at the thud of the seven colliding with the leather of the corner pocket.

A man appears at the other end of the table, resting his hip against the side. He whistles appreciatively as his eyes trail shamelessly over Kensi's body. "Nice shot."

She straightens, removing the guy's view of her cleavage. "Thank you."

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Nell jumps slightly at the words, so distracted by Kensi's admirer that she hadn't noticed she had one of her own.

She holds up her beer, clearly more than halfway full. "Got one, but thanks."

"We appreciate the offer," says Kensi, stepping closer to Nell, practically wedging herself between her and the stranger.

At Kensi's clear aggressive stance, both men take the hint, quickly blending back into the crowded bar.

When they're gone, Kensi turns to Nell. "Did I read that wrong? Did you want them to stay?"

"Oh no," Nell insists with a definitive shake of her head. Spending her evening with a pair of shady barflies was not on her list of things to do tonight. She glances once more at the retreating figures. Make that any night. "Definitely no."

"Okay, good." Kensi nods, returning her attention to her next shot.

Nell watches a moment, unsure of whether or not to continue the conversation. She's been working at OSP over a month now, and while she's dominating the actual work part of the job, she's still struggling to figure out how to interact with the people. But Kensi asked her to join them tonight, so maybe it's Nell's turn to make the effort.

"I'm not," she says, pausing to mentally debate how to finish the sentence, "I'm not looking for anyone right now."

Kensi's shot misses the pocket by a good three inches. She stands, returning to Nell and grabbing her beer off the nearest high top. "Do you have someone back in..."

"Michigan, and no. I'm single, just..." She trails off, eyes sweeping back toward the booth where the rest of the team is still sitting.

Kensi follows her gaze. "Ah, I see."

Nell blushes, unsure of what conclusion Kensi's drawn from her wistful look, of what conclusion can be drawn, but certain she doesn't want to try and figure it out.

"What about you?" she asks, not at all subtle in her subject change. "Word is you're seeing someone at LAPD?"

"Yeah," Kensi says, gesturing for Nell to take her next shot. "We've been on a couple of dates."

"And?"

Kensi shrugs. "We're in that weird place right now where we aren't boyfriend/girlfriend but if I found out he was seeing someone else I'd -"

"Kick him in the nuts?"

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

"Not anytime soon, no." Nell smiles, stepping up to the table. "So, why didn't you invite him to come out tonight?"

"Work thing." She shrugs. "The team isn't big on including outsiders in our social activities. And I'm not even talking about real outsiders. I mean, I don't even know what Sam's wife looks like."

"Maybe that's her choice."

"Maybe."

Nell's eyes find their way back to the team. Only Callen and Sam are at the table now. "Do any of them - is anyone else seeing someone?"

"I don't think so, but I don't know. It's not really something we talk about. Well, besides Renko's occasional disastrous dates, of course."

Kensi says the last part loudly, so the object of her comment can make out the words as he approaches.

"Disaster is such a harsh word," he says, setting his beer on the table beside them.

"Can you suggest a better one?"

"Didn't say it wasn't the right word, just said it was harsh." Nell and Kensi laugh as his eyes scan the table. "Now, who's gonna win this game so I can provide some real competition?"

* * *

"Wait, how - you have a _dog_?"

"I do." Deeks tugs at Monty's collar, prying him off of Kensi long enough for her to step inside. "Kensi, this is Monty. Monty, Kensi."

She bends down just inside the door, scratching at Monty's neck. He's practically purring. So pathetic.

"Monty, man, have some self-respect."

The dog looks briefly up at Deeks before turning his full attention back to Kensi and shamelessly licking her cheek.

"Kisses, really?"

Kensi's smiling when she stands but it quickly morphs into a frown. "Was he here by himself all weekend?"

"No, no," he assures her. "He was working."

Her eyebrows raise. "Working?"

"He's a retired police dog and now he does some undercover work. Usually with me, but on occasion the department needs him for other ops."

"So he's seeing more action than you are, huh?" She's making a sympathetic face that doesn't seem so much genuine as an attempt at masking her amusement.

Deeks shakes his head. "Go ahead, rub it in."

The laughter breaks through as Kensi steps up to him. "If I remember correctly, you got plenty of action this weekend."

"That is true."

"Are you suggesting you'd have rather been on an op?"

"No, no," he answers quickly, closing the remaining distance between them. "Not suggesting that at all."

She reaches up to meet him, her lips against his, and he closes his eyes as his hands find her waist. The kiss is slow and gentle, lasting what feels like a long minute before she pulls back.

"Do I get the nickel tour?"

He nods, hand finding hers and clasping it. "Sure."

"Can we start with the kitchen?"

He tugs her in that direction. Probably best they don't start with the bedroom anyway. "Didn't you just come from a bar?"

"I did. Don't you have ice cream?"

"Rocky Road, purchased special for you."

He opens the cupboard and grabs two bowls as Kensi opens the freezer. He digs through his silverware drawer, retrieving spoons and the scoop.

"Thanks for the help earlier." She pries the lid off the container and Deeks offers her the scoop.

He leans against the counter as she dishes the ice cream. "No problem. Everything work out okay?"

"For now."

"You didn't assault any more foreign nationals, did you?"

She makes a face.

"Oh my god, you did."

"I didn't, but I would have." She licks some ice cream off the heel of her hand. "For some reason Callen had Sam on the rifle."

He shakes his head. "I'm sure I shouldn't hear the rest of this story."

"Please," she continues, pulling out nicely rounded scoops, "he deserved it."

"And here I spent my entire day in front of a computer screen. The only battle I had was the one with myself and my desire to open an internet browser so I could check the beach cam."

"Sounds exciting."

"Gotta keep up on the surf. Don't you guys ever have normal days?"

She hands him a bowl, expression hopeful. "Maybe tomorrow."

* * *

Renko's fists are white, his nails digging into his palms as he waits for the bomb squad to finish. "Can't they just -"

"They're working as fast as they can," Sam assures him, though he doesn't sound any less tense than Renko.

"Not fast enough."

He feels like he's been standing there for an hour - watching as Kensi sweats and shakes, her skin turning a lighter shade of white with each passing minute. He doesn't take his eyes off her, afraid that if he looks away too long she'll disappear.

"Okay, Agent Blye," says the squad leader, but Renko's not sure she hears. "Thirty more seconds."

The countdown ticks off, each second echoing in his ears as he waits to close the distance between them. The moment the beams of red are gone he's pushing past the bomb squad, reaching for her as she collapses, her mind finally allowing her body to give up the fight.

"It's okay, Kensi," he tells her, but her eyes are already rolling back and the medics are coming up behind him, guiding him out of the way.

"I didn't do anything," he says when he feels a hand squeeze his shoulder. "Not a goddamn thing, Sam."

"There's nothing more you could have done."

"I should have gotten her out of there."

"You got the bomb squad to do it. That's all anyone could have done."

But it wasn't enough. He digs his phone out of his pocket and dials, stepping away from Sam as Callen approaches.

"_How is she?_"

"She's going to be just fine. Listen, can you -"

"_Just sent it to your phone_."

Renko almost smiles, but he doesn't have it in him. Not now. "You're a peach, Nell. Thanks."

He hangs up and dials the number she texted. It connects after the third ring.

"_Deeks_."

"Hey. It's Mike Renko."

"_Renko, what's - is Kensi okay?_"

"She's good, yeah, fine, don't worry. Just a little shaken up." He runs a hand through his hair and drags his eyes away from the scene. "The paramedics are checking her over. Look, I know she'd never ask you this herself, but -"

"_Tell me where you are_."

* * *

Deeks parks his car alongside an unoccupied cruiser, opening the door and working his legs out the moment his vehicle comes to a complete stop. He sees her immediately - ghostly pale, blue lips, her hair matted to her forehead. She looks exhausted and defeated and so utterly unlike any version of her he's seen before.

"Really," he hears her insisting as he approaches, "I'm fine."

"Yes ma'am," the paramedic says. "I just need you to at least sit down a little longer, and if we could reinsert the IV that would be -"

She cuts him off with a wave of her water bottle. "I'm hydrating the old fashioned way."

The man looks at her, unsure but probably more than a little intimidated. He shakes his head once before stripping off his latex gloves and disappearing around the front of the truck.

"You know, if you let them treat you you might get some Jello out of the deal."

Kensi looks up, startled. "Deeks? Why are you..."

He steps closer and tugs the blanket higher on her shoulders, adjusting it ineffectively, but using it as an excuse to touch her. "Your partner called."

Her shocked expression immediately morphs into pissed. "Wait, what? Why would he do that?"

"Because he was worried about you?" He sits down beside her, perching on the edge of the ambulance. As much as he'd love to fuss over her, he knows she definitely doesn't need that. Or even want it. Hell, she probably doesn't want or need him here at all.

Renko was right, Kensi would never have called him. He probably wouldn't have known this happened at all if it were up to her. He'd just have dropped by later tonight and she'd be there on her couch, drinking beer and watching reality television like nothing happened.

Deeks, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. His heart hasn't stopped racing since he got Renko's call, though he's finally breathing a little easier now that he sees her whole and mostly unharmed.

"I'm fine," she says, shrugging off the blanket. "Nothing even happened to me."

"Besides being captured and held by foreign agents, pinned in place by a laser grid and waiting to be rescued until the bomb squad could be dispatched. You're right, nothing happened."

"I wasn't hurt. I'm fine."

"I recognize your armor's still in one piece, Wonder Woman, but it's possible you still could use a little extra support from time to time."

"I'm -"

"If you say you're fine one more time I'm going to throw you into this ambulance and drive it to the hospital myself." His eyes lock on hers. "We both know you're not fine."

When she speaks it sounds like she's trying not to cry. "I'm a little tired."

At her admission his body visibly relaxes. Maybe, just maybe, he'll be able to get through to her. "And hungry?"

She shrugs as water wells in her eyes.

"Want me to take you home?"

She nods, her head dropping onto his shoulder. He wraps his arm around her and pulls her close, taking a moment to feel her breathe against him.

"I was scared," she says quietly. "Even when Renko showed up and I knew the bomb squad was coming. I thought my muscles were going to collapse and I couldn't stop shaking and I was sure there was no way I could -"

"You made it," he says, dropping a kiss onto the top of her head.

She presses her face into his chest.

"You made it," he promises.

After a few minutes, she pulls back. Her face is a little damp, her eyes are red and she's sniffling, but she looks as strong as ever.

"You okay?"

"I've got to pee."

He laughs and slides off the ambulance, turning and reaching for her hands. "Come on. I'll use the siren."


	8. Chapter 8

_A spice rack?_

Kensi types a reply as she makes her way up to ops. _Maybe she sees a hidden talent in me._

_Very, very hidden._

She laughs, which earns her a shake of the head from Renko. _I am not that bad!_

_..._

_Don't elipses me! You ate it. It was edible._

_One of those things is true, yes._

She hangs back in the hallway as the team passes through the sliding doors. _See if I ever cook for you again._

_Is that supposed to be a threat?_

"Hey, Juliette," Renko says, sticking his head back into the hall. "Wherefore art thou?"

_gtg_

She clicks her phone off and pockets it, walking into ops with a sigh. "Wherefore means 'why.' You're asking _why _am I."

"Yeah, _why _are you texting when we've got a case?"

She elbows him in the side as she comes up to the table. "I hope you 'exit, pursued by a bear.'"

He makes a face. "Well, your trivia game remains strong, but your humor leaves a lot to be desired."

"_You_ leave a lot to be desired."

He sighs. "Exactly."

* * *

"This man has no family and no friends," says the doctor. "The trauma he experienced while deployed has driven him into complete isolation. Frankly," he folds his hands at his waist and stand a little straighter, "forgetting what happened last night may be the best thing for him."

Callen sighs internally. Selective amnesia's great for Talbot, but doesn't help them solve this case any faster. It doesn't help them solve this case at all. They've got two dead bodies, a guy drenched in blood, a dozen horrified bystanders, and no idea what happened.

"Has Talbot been taking risperidone along with benzodiazepines?"

Kensi's question pulls Callen out of this thoughts. What and which?

"As a matter of fact, yes," says the doctor, clearly just as surprised as Callen.

He watches as she thinks about the answer for a moment, and he wonders what it is she's debating.

"I'll talk to him."

Callen nods, but isn't happy about it. There's something going on here and he doesn't like not having all the information. He can't effectively lead the team if he doesn't know the variables in play. But he trusts Kensi and trusts her judgment, so he gives her the benefit of the doubt.

"I didn't know you had an agent who was familiar with the pharmacological treatment of DSM-IV-TR," the doctor says after Kensi's made her way to interrogation.

"Neither did we," Callen answers, still staring at the hallway, trying to figure out what it is he's missing. That's not something she learned in training. Maybe her father? He drags his attention back into the room. "Thank you for your time, Doctor."

"No problem."

The doctor makes his way out of the boat shed and the team turns to the screen to watch as Kensi sits down at the table.

Whatever's going on, Callen has a feeling he's about to find out.

* * *

Deeks peels the plastic wrap back on a plate of Christmas cookies, surveying his options. He selects a gingerbread man with three silver buttons and a single remaining red hot for an eye, wrapping it in a napkin before making his way back to his desk with his freshly refilled coffee.

He drops down into his seat and tosses the cookie on the table. He takes a sip of his drink and watches the cursor blink in and out on his screen. Looking down, he notices the gingerbread man has a cracked left arm. His eyes dart over to the tape dispenser, considering for a moment whether anyone will notice him if he takes a minute to practice combat casualty care on a cookie. He's pretty sure this is the kind of stuff that's expected of highly trained super spies, right? On the other hand, he's probably not going to be doing much at all if command sends him for a psych eval.

He grabs the napkin and unwraps the cookie, picking off the silver balls and flicking them into his garbage can. _Fuck it_, he voices internally as the arm snaps off entirely between his teeth. It's super crunchy - probably because they've been in the break room for the better part of a week, but probably also because it's gingerbread and gingerbread cookies are just unpalatable by default. He tosses the remaining cookie into the garbage.

He lets out an audible sigh as his eyes drift over the assorted 8.5" x 11" bearers of boredom littering the surface of his desk. Another day, another round of mindless paperwork. If he'd wanted to spend his life at a desk debating whether or not the sentence needed a comma he'd have stayed at the public defender's office. This is getting ridiculous.

He glances at the clock on the bottom of his screen, debating whether or not he's been at his desk long enough to warrant another round at the range. Not even close.

He pulls out his cell and types a message. He's just hitting send when a nicely tailored pantsuit leans against his desk.

"Hey, Deeks."

He looks up at Detective Parker and tosses his phone onto his desk. "Please tell me you're here to ask me for help on an assignment. Someone's been murdered and you just can't handle the workload, right?"

She shakes her head.

"A really fast guy has escaped and you need someone to run him down? You know how speedy I am."

Another shake.

"You're here to take some of this paperwork?"

She eyes the files stacked on his desk. "That looks about the same size it did yesterday."

"Optical illusion."

"Uh huh. You bringing that girlfriend of yours to the Christmas party tonight?"

He sighs and leans back in his chair. "I am not."

"Because she doesn't exist?"

"Because I have other plans." And because he has zero interest in introducing Kensi to the assholes he works with. Present company excluded, of course.

"Soup kitchen?" she guesses.

"Minestrone doesn't ladle itself."

She smiles and shakes her head. "You sure about this girl of yours, Deeks? Because I'm considering kicking Mike to the curb and will need a surrogate father for my children."

"If I believed that for a second I might take you up on it. You know Josie would be on board."

"Only because she'd think you'd take her surfing twice a day and serve ice cream for every meal."

"Well, I would." His desk phone rings and he snatches it up. "Deeks."

"_The Lieutenant wants to see you._"

"He can't just look at the photo of me he keeps in his wallet?"

"_I'll do you a favor and not tell him you said that_."

"Spoilsport." He drops the phone back into the receiver and looks back up at Parker. "The bossman beckons."

"Hey, maybe he has a case for you."

Hallelujah. "It's a Christmas miracle."

* * *

"I just, uh." Kensi clears her throat, sweeping her bangs out of her eyes. "I just need to..."

Renko nods in understanding. "Take your time. I'll round up Talbot and we'll head to the car."

She gives him a weak smile and slips into the restroom, the door closing silently behind her as she crosses over to the sink. She snags a paper towel off the pile on the counter, soaking it in cold water before pressing it to her cheeks.

She wasn't ready for this, wasn't prepared to be flooded with these emotions when she's still so raw. It's only been six years. It's only been -

She swipes the paper towel under her eye, trying to tame the makeup that's smudged down her cheeks.

She never liked Christmas; not since her father died. Not since she looked over the shoulder of the Marine in his dress uniform - the one on her doorstep telling her her father wasn't coming home - and saw her neighbor's garish, plastic Santa blinking in and out, his pink cheeks and bright eyes full of mirth. He didn't understand her pain then and he didn't understand it any better now. The brightly colored piece of plastic crap didn't care that she was suffering. He couldn't turn off the charm for one goddamn second and respect the fact that her insides were being shredded and ripped apart.

It was actually considerate of Jack to leave her, to leave them, on Christmas. He didn't ruin another part of the year. He just added to the pain the holiday season brings, which, frankly, was pretty much at capacity before he even entered her life. She already hated the songs and the colors and the taste of eggnog and the smell of fresh nutmeg and the idea that the only way to be happy is to have someone to be happy with.

It could have been worse, she tells herself. He could have ruined Halloween. And candy.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and looks at the screen, finding a text from Deeks. She flicks it up and enters her password so she can read the message.

_Is it six yet?_

She sniffles. _I wish._

She waits a second for a reply, and when it doesn't come she slides her phone back into her pocket and looks at her reflection.

Maybe she's got another chance.

She stands up straighter and swallows the lump in her throat. Plastic Santa may not care about poor, lost souls, but Kensi does. She's got to pull herself together for Talbot. She is not going to let him down.

* * *

Renko watches as Kensi shrugs on her leather jacket and brushes her hair out of her eyes. She looks so beat down, so tired. He knows today was awful for her, what a whirlwind it's been. He's not sure what to do about it but he knows he can't just let her slip away without even trying.

He grabs his bag and closes his locker. "Going to make your flight?"

When she doesn't respond he tries again. "Kensi?"

She looks up then, like it's the first thing she's heard. "Hmm?"

"I asked if you were going to be able to make your flight."

She shakes her head and takes another swipe at her bangs. "No, I don't think so. I'll, uh, I'll have to go standby or something."

He's fairly sure he doesn't believe her. "Well, if you don't end up getting a flight, you're welcome to come with me to San Diego. My aunt is in the running for the world's worst cook, but she buys the pie, so at least that's edible. And my cousin Joe always spikes the eggnog. The rum doesn't make it taste any better, but at least by the end of the third mug you'll be tipsy enough that you won't give a shit about the fourth." He smiles, hoping it'll spread a little cheer.

It doesn't.

"Thank you, but I'm good. I think I'll just head home." She hooks her bag over her shoulder. "I'll grab a flight tomorrow."

He knows there's something she's not telling him, but also knows it's not his place to ask. Kensi's always had a wall around her that she doesn't want penetrated, and he respects that. Some people just like to keep to themselves. And though it's a far cry from the way he is, he tries to be understanding. He tries his best to stay out of her personal bubble.

"Okay," he nods, "have a merry Christmas."

She finally smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "You too."

* * *

When she gets home, she heads straight for the bedroom. She's got half an hour before Deeks shows up to take her to their mystery destination, and she wants to change, needs to change - like somehow a new shirt will make the rest of the day seem farther away.

She still feels like shit, like there's a chunk of her heart that's hanging by a thread - like her lungs are smaller but the smallness makes them exponentially more difficult to fill. But Deeks is coming. He'll be here and he'll see her and she's going to be herself, going to move past this mopey, sorry crap.

And maybe when he holds her she'll stop breaking apart.

She tugs at her closet door, kicking aside a pile of clothes to get it to open all the way. When she can finally see what's inside she frowns, tugging at the elastic band in her hair.

What's the dress code for "mystery" anyway?

She's pulling her phone out to text him when it pings.

_Can't make it tonight. Op came up and I have to go under like five minutes ago. I don't know how long I'll be gone, but I'll contact you if I can. Have a merry Christmas, Kens. I'll miss you._

She stares at his message, reading it four, five times before breaking down into full-blown tears.

_Stupid_, she tells herself, scrubbing furiously at her face. _Stupid, crying Kensi._ Like she didn't get enough of that out this morning? How many more times will she cry over being alone? How many more times will she set herself up to take this same fall before she realizes it's safer to stay on the ground?

She knows it's an operation; she knows he had no choice and that he wouldn't have wanted to go. She knows Deeks would be here if he could. But still, the echo of all her past heartbreak is there.

There's no tree in her apartment but she still smells pine, no cookies in the oven but she still tastes gingerbread, no snow on the ground but she still feels cold. It's Christmas and she's by herself and that's the way it has to be.

Her neighbors' lights twinkle outside her window and she's on the floor, alone, reminded once again that she shouldn't let anyone else in because no one, absolutely no one else will always be there.

Kensi isn't supposed to find someone she can depend on - isn't supposed to let anyone share the weight of her heart.

She's got to be content to carry the weight alone.

So she picks herself up off the floor and resolves to do just that.

* * *

Locked in his drawer at LAPD headquarters, Deeks' phone vibrates with a message.

_Be safe._

It's silent for a moment and then it vibrates again.

_Come back._


	9. Chapter 9

**a/n:** Sorry about the wait - life got away from me. Sorry about the length - the chapter got away from me. Thanks for sticking with this and I hope you enjoy :)

* * *

"I looked it up."

Renko starts scraping dirt from under his fingernail with an old toothpick. "Looked what up?"

"That's disgusting."

He glances over, totally unapologetic. "Would you rather I left it there?"

"You could wash your hands in a sink."

He gestures around them. "I see no sink."

"Anyway," she sighs and drops her hands from the steering wheel, "I know the difference between a bikini bar and a strip club."

"I bet you loved the search results that popped up when you googled that."

She glares at him. Mostly to cover her embarrassment. They were pretty graphic.

"Going to enlighten me?"

She's slightly irritated, but not enough to keep her from sharing her wealth of knowledge with the uninformed. "A strip club has no alcohol and no clothes, and a bikini bar has alcohol and clothes."

"So nipples or booze? What an awful choice to make."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, awful."

"You get to see them while you drink. I don't expect you to understand."

"Yeah, I go home most nights, open a beer and stare at my breasts."

"I do that too, but it's never very gratifying."

"You're disgusting."

He puts the toothpick in his mouth. "So I've been told."

She does go home some nights, open a beer and stare at leggy models, but that's only once a week. Probably not worth mentioning.

It's been over a month since Deeks went under on his op and she hasn't heard a word from him. Which, you know, is fine and understandable, but mostly it's completely and utterly awful. Because once you open up your life to fit someone into it it's got a specially shaped hole that they're expected to fill. And that hole, that Deeks-shaped hole, has been empty for a long time. And it sucks.

And not just because she's lonely, which she is, but also because she's worried about him. Because while she may be home alone, he's out there alone and out there is a much harder place to be. She knows he's capable, more than capable - and she knows he's doing what he loves - but he's still somewhere she isn't, surrounded with bad people doing bad things, and he doesn't have backup. He doesn't have a partner.

She runs her hand through her hair and settles in against it, elbow propped at the base of the window, eyes unfocused as she stares ahead.

No matter how many times she tells herself that she was better before, that she hurt less, she can't convince herself of the fact that her life before, like the life she's living right now in his absence, was the one she should choose. Work was the highlight of her day - was the only part that held any joy. But with Deeks? She laughed, she smiled, she felt warm and enveloped in something. She was happy. She had a partner.

And just like in the job, it made all the difference.

"Dude," says Renko, drawing Kensi from her thoughts. He's staring through the binoculars, leaning forward, like the few inches will make the zoom more effective. "No way."

"They done with Gold Watch already?" she asks. She hasn't been listening to the conversation on the comms, but she feels like she wasn't so unfocused that she would miss the whole thing concluding.

"Nope," he answers, surrendering the binoculars.

"Well then what..." She puts them to her eyes, turning the knob slightly to bring the image into focus. "The hell?"

* * *

"Black Range Rover driving to Los Angeles from Vegas tomorrow," says Brenner. "Fire up some flares. Create a roadblock. Pull the driver out, give him a ticket. Take him for," he waves a hand as he considers, "resisting arrest. Once he's locked up, you get paid."

"What's his name?" Callen asks.

"Not important."

"You want us to arrest the right guy, we're gonna need a name."

Brenner sighs. "Phil Crombie. Ex-con. Business rival of mine. I need him off the street so I can complete a deal."

"_So, uh_," Renko says in their ears. "_You've got company._"

"What if we say no?"

"You," Brenner points to Sam, "won't." He turns his finger to Callen. "You? I don't care about. I only need one of you."

Callen sits forward. "Excuse me?"

"I only need two officers for this job," says Brenner, turning toward the front of the bar, "and I've already got one."

Sam follows Brenner's gaze and sees Deeks at the entry, eyes searching. They land on Brenner and he waves Deeks over before turning back to Sam and Callen with a smile. "How's that for dramatic timing?"

Sam's fists clench under the table. Of course. Of course their mark would approach Deeks first and he'd insert himself into their op. Because these things just can't play out the way they're supposed to. It would be too easy.

When Deeks arrives at the table, Brenner continues, "This is Officer Howard, I believe you've met."

"You don't need Howard," Sam says, not even sparing Deeks a glance. "Exley and I are partners. He should be the second guy."

Brenner makes a face like he's considering it. "Yeah, no. That doesn't work for me." He pushes up out of his seat, tugging at the cuffs of his shirt. "I like to put my own pieces into play."

Sam's about to try again, to reason another way - to insist he keeps his partner, but a glance from Callen forces him to back down.

They don't have to like it, but they have to do it. They can't lose this guy before they've even started.

Brenner waves his finger between Sam and Deeks and flashes a disingenuous grin. "Don't fuck this up."

* * *

Once Brenner's out the door, Deeks cuts his eyes to Sam. "Trying to cut me out? Really?"

"Get over yourself, Deeks. It isn't about you. It's about us getting this job done. We've been under for six months."

"You've been working one shift a week for six months. I've been there full-time for the last five weeks. Give me some credit."

"This is an NCIS -"

He waves him off. "Bullshit. This is dirty cops."

"This is military hardware."

"I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where he mentioned that."

Deeks is beyond tired of being Officer Darren Howard, beyond tired of being on the highway patrol, and beyond tired of this fucking assignment. And he should be done with it - would be done with it, if crap hadn't started hitting the fan in the last twenty-four hours. He was all set to make the bust on this ring - the date and time set with his lieutenant. He could practically taste his freedom, smell the salty ocean air, feel Monty's fur between his fingers, hear his name on Kensi's lips. And then Paul Beane turned up dead, some asshole started talking about a big business venture, and Bates decided he wanted to catch the bigger fish.

So here he is, a fish on the line he's been tending non-stop and these two jerks on the shore trying to steal what he's caught.

Callen puts his hands up. "Look, obviously we're in this together, so let's start acting like it."

"Maybe you can even be glad it's me that's the second guy and not a wild card."

Sam snorts. "That assumes you're not one."

Deeks rolls his eyes. What does a guy have to do to prove himself to these guys? "We may not be on the same team, but we're on the same side. I'll get my job done and you take care of yours."

Sam gives him one last look before pushing out of his chair. "At least one of those things is gonna pan out to be true."

* * *

Callen steps into the mission and shakes his head. "Not now, Kensi."

"Not now? Not _now_?"

Okay, that was a long shot.

"I agree 'not now,'" she continues, arms folded so tightly in front of her he's afraid she might snap. "Now isn't the time. Five _weeks_ ago was the time."

He maneuvers past her to his desk. "It wasn't any of your concern."

"Like hell it wasn't."

He grabs his bag and shoves some files into it, gathering up a good steam before he swings around to face her. "The operation was for Sam and I, not you. Not until Hetty pulled the team into it. It's not my job to keep you informed of every assignment I'm put on and the details surrounding it."

"I'm not asking you to tell me about the op, Callen, I'm asking you to let me know when Deeks is involved."

"He wasn't."

"He was there!"

"Yeah, he was there. He's been undercover at the CHP for the last few weeks. But that's not your business."

"It is my business!" Her voice had been creeping up slightly more with every word since his name had crossed her lips and her crescendo has just about reached fortissimo.

"Then take that up with him."

She deflates at that, and he immediately regrets the edge he's taken with his tone.

"You're my friend," she says, softer now. "And you know how worried about him I've been."

"Do I, Kens?" He leans against the desk. "You don't talk to me about your life, you've never outright said that you and he are dating. Sure you've been edgy, but maybe you're on a juice cleanse or something."

She glares at him.

"Look, regardless, I'm not the one you should be mad at."

"Oh, I'm mad at Sam too."

He shakes his head, a grin tugging at the edge of his lips. "Not him either."

She huffs. "Regardless of what Deeks should or shouldn't have told me, you could have mentioned it. You could have told me you knew where he was and what he was doing."

She's right, he knows. He's seen her moping around, he's overheard her talking with Renko. He knows how she feels about Deeks and knows that he could have eased some of her tension these past few weeks if he'd volunteered the information. But it's Kensi and it's her life and it was easier to tell himself that it wasn't his business than it was to get himself caught up in the middle.

He nods and pushes off his desk. "Okay, I'm sorry. Can I make it up to you with a milkshake, or do you have someone else to go yell at?"

She drops her arms to her sides and exhales. "No, I'm free."

* * *

"So 'Steve Brenner' is an alias," says Eric, pulling up a prison record on the big screen. "His real name's Justin Marchetti. Did nine years in federal prison for running a Ponzi scheme."

Nell taps on her tablet. "Some people thought he was a Wall Street savant until $20 million of his clients' money disappeared. Mostly retirement funds and life savings."

"His buddies are all former French military - GIGN."

"That's an elite counter terrorist unit," says Sam, folding his arms across his chest. "Their services don't come cheap."

The ops doors slide open and Deeks walks in. At least Kensi's pretty sure it's Deeks. She's not risking a glance in that direction because she's not going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his presence.

"And what do we have on Phil Crombie, the guy Marchetti wants us to stop?" Callen asks, after a nod at the room's newest occupant.

"Hey, Deeks," says Eric. "Crazy how you wound up on a case with us again, yeah?"

"It's a small world."

"Well, yeah, and also," Eric continues, "we work in the same city and operate in the same circles, so, well, maybe not hugely crazy. But still cool."

"Very cool."

"Eric?" Callen prompts. "Crombie?"

"Right!" He turns back to the screen. "Crombie did a dime in Folsom for drug trafficking. Released last year. Currently employed by a restaurant in Santa Monica."

Kensi digs her fingers into the table in front of her to keep from launching herself across the room at Deeks. She's not sure if she'd attack him in anger or lust, but she's not interested in doing either in front of her teammates. "What, did he graduate from narcotics to military hardware?"

Before anyone can answer, Deeks' phone starts ringing. He pulls it out of his pocket. "It's got to be Marchetti."

Eric nods. "All right. Ready to start the trace."

"Howard," Deeks answers.

Marchetti's voice comes over the speaker. "The Range Rover will be passing Marker 447 on Route 138 at exactly 4:00 PM."

"You sure Crombie's on board?" Deeks asks, doing his best to keep him on the line. From the hurried, clipped tone Marchetti's using, Kensi's sure it's futile.

"He's driving. Don't screw it up."

The phone disconnects and Eric shakes his head. "He's using an encrypted sat phone. Not even close."

* * *

The briefing ends and the team disperses, but Deeks lingers, watching Kensi as she stands ramrod straight, fingers wrapped around the edge of the table. He's seen her annoyed, he's seen her frustrated, but this level of pissed off is a whole new beast. He's not ashamed to say he's a little bit terrified.

"Kens?"

Her head swivels in his direction, but she doesn't make eye contact. "Come with me," she says coolly, before brushing past him and out of the room.

Okay, he's a lot terrified.

He follows her down the stairs and around the corner, down the hallway and into the - firing range. Oh, great.

"Listen, Kens," he says as he crosses the threshold, "I wanted to -"

She closes the door behind him and spins around. "Don't you give me that 'I wanted to tell you' bullshit."

"I did!"

"If you wanted to, you _could _have!"

"I know you haven't ever been deep cover -"

"Don't you dare."

"- but when you go deep, you cut off all ties," he continues, trying to ignore the way her eyes have narrowed. "All ties. Not just some of them."

She shakes her head, fuming. "You were under as a cop. You had plenty of opportunities to text me."

"I didn't have my phone."

"You don't know my number?"

"I didn't want to compromise -"

"I wouldn't have compromised anything!"

"I know you wouldn't, I'm not making this about you, Kensi."

"It is about me! You were working with my team -"

He throws up his hands. "Which also has nothing to do with it."

"That's such bullshit, Deeks." She brings her hand up to her forehead before dropping it in exasperation. "You left. On Christmas."

"I know. I'm really sorry."

"You don't know," she insists, and he thinks maybe there are tears brimming. "You don't know what that meant to me."

From the expression on her face, the clear hurt in her tone, he's certain he doesn't. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You did."

His heart clenches and he curls his hands into fists, forcing himself not to reach out to her.

"And I understood it," she says. "I did."

"It's the job."

"Yeah, it's the job. But you could have reached out. You could have contacted me."

"Once I'm under -"

"Once you're under you're still you and I'm still me and if it won't terribly inconvenience you, you could send a message to let me know you're okay. Or at least I'll know you're okay enough to tap a couple -"

He shakes his head, risking a step forward. "It's not about inconveniencing me, Kensi. I realize it sucks for me to disappear like that - it sucked for me too - but when I go deep cover I drop everything. That's how it works. I lock my phone up in my desk, I shut off the lights in my office and I turn off Marty Deeks. I become someone else. Unless I'm meeting my handler that doesn't drop. It can't. Because if it does - if I risk being me for even a second, then I risk everything."

"You can't just take five minutes -"

"Do you know what I'd do with those five minutes? I'd spend every second of it thinking about you, and trying to contact you or be with you. I'd pull myself so far out of the op and into a world I'd much rather be inhabiting and I don't know that I'd be able to force myself to go completely back in. Or worse, I'd slip. Just for a second. Just one word. Or one look. And then it's over."

She softens at that, her body releasing some of the visible tension.

"Believe me," he takes another step, bringing a hand up to her arm, and god it feels so good to touch her, "please believe me, that I wanted to contact you. That seeing Sam and Callen made it infinitely harder - but that I couldn't let myself. Because I've never had to do this job - I've never had to be inside when I wanted so very badly to be out."

He reaches out with his other hand and slides both down to clasp hers. "I've never had something at home that I wanted as badly as you, Kensi, and I wasn't sure I could keep my head in the game."

Her fingers grasp his loosely, but it's enough to reassure him.

"I don't know how," she says, "but we're going to have to figure out a way to do this differently. Because I understand what you're saying, but I can't handle you being out there and me not knowing. I can't live like that. It's too hard."

He inches even closer, drawn in by her eyes, her lips.

"Yo, Kensi," Renko says, the door to the range swinging open.

Deeks and Kensi jump apart and he shifts his attention awkwardly to the floor.

"Callen wants us to go back to Paul Beane's garage." Renkos eyes dart between them. "Sorry, but we've gotta go."

"Okay." Kensi nods, glancing at Deeks one last time. "Be careful, please."

"I will," he promises, and he watches her walk out the door, hoping that even though things aren't resolved, at least they're headed in the right direction.

* * *

Sam sees the muzzle of the riffle and then sees nothing.

He feels everything, all at once. Pain in his chest, spreading to his arms, like lava in his veins. His head hits the dirt, rocks scrape his skin. His body is heavy, throbbing, shaking, and bullets thunder in his ears as he rolls, trying to drag himself out of the fight before he's on the receiving end of anything worse. He knows he has to get up, to get out, but his limbs are like lead and he can't find the strength to move them.

Everything's a little blurry, but his vision is suddenly filled with Deeks, face determined as he provides cover fire, hand firm on Sam's back. As the two of them manage to get Sam to his feet, something explodes on the road. They duck back, together, pressing themselves into the dirt and brush as the barrage of bullets continues to thump rhythmically in his ears and under his skin.

"You okay?" Deeks voice pierces through the cacophony, his hand again pressed into Sam's back.

"Vest took the hit," Sam manages, but he's not sure with what air.

Deeks nods, watching the scene ahead of them through squinted eyes, his gun poised to return fire. "Marchetti's guys."

"Yeah," says Sam, his gun rising to do the same. He thinks _thank you_ but lacks the capacity to say it, instead determined to show it in the best way he can - by keeping his partner alive.

* * *

Kensi's at her desk, being exactly zero percent productive when she hears Renko's voice around the corner.

"You guys okay?"

She practically leaps out of her chair, coming around her desk just as Sam and Deeks step into the bullpen.

"Sam, you okay? Deeks?" she breathes.

"I'm good, Kensi, thanks," Sam says, patting Deeks on the back. She's too focused on Deeks to bother asking the questions that Sam's move raises.

He looks fine, she heard he was fine, but she still needs to touch him to make sure.

"I'm good too," he assures her, as she hovers in front of him, wondering if it would be appropriate to hug. Wondering if he wants her to. She reaches out, brushing the skin of his wrist with her fingertips. It's been over a month since she's felt the pressure of him against her and she's aching for it now more than ever.

"You said you were going to be careful."

"That was me being careful." He holds up his other hand and wiggles his fingers. "All pieces in working order. What else can you ask for?"

"Could you repeat that?" Hetty's voice comes from behind her. Kensi tears her gaze from Deeks and turns to find her boss on the phone, frown etched deeply into her features.

"Empty Quiver. Indeed." Hetty hangs up her phone and announces, "Empty Quiver, ladies and gentlemen."

Kensi's hand slips from Deeks wrist to his palm and holds on.

So it was military hardware after all.

* * *

"_Renko, take him!_"

Deeks hears Callen's voice in his ear and feels Kensi hovering beside him. He was surprised when Kensi suggested that Renko be on overwatch, but glad, her presence familiar and comforting. He's spent so long going into these things without anyone at his side, and he hasn't had her company that often, but it feels right, it fits, in a way that nothing else ever quite has.

"_Driver and passenger are down_," Renko calls over the comm and Deeks listens as Callen and Sam proceed to help him dispose of the final merc.

Kensi makes a motion, suggesting they split up and he nods, knowing it's the best way to clear the rest of the building. He watches as she goes past a stack of obnoxiously orange dishes and disappears out of sight.

He listens to the team with one ear and keeps tuned in to his surroundings with the other, sweeping the barrel of his weapon along with his eyes as he makes his way through the warehouse. It seems to be empty, but he's sure it's not - Marchetti's not the kind of guy who'd leave this operation in the hands of minions. Not even the highly trained, ex-operative kind. If he's not on the ground somewhere, then he's nearby -

His thoughts are interrupted by a shout and the sounds of a scuffle. His heart lodges in his throat and he pushes it down, channeling his adrenaline and sharpening it into focus.

He pushes through the swinging door and finds Kensi across the room, the barrel of a gun pressed against her back, hands up in surrender. The physicist is on the floor, nursing what appears to be a badly broken nose and looking seriously pissed off.

"You don't want to shoot me," Kensi says.

"I don't know about that." Marchetti tightens his hold. "My cell mate at Eastwood spoke very highly of the thrill of taking a life. Very poetic. You'd be surprised."

"I've done it. Not something I'd recommend."

"I'm not really interested in taking advice from Combat Barbie," he answers. "No offense."

"Offense taken," she says, ducking down as the words clip off and thrusting her right foot back into his shin as she moves.

He falls, but falls forward, taking her with him, and they hit the ground together. The gun clatters to the floor and spins away from them as they wrestle, the sudden loudness of metal colliding with concrete ricocheting off the high walls.

Deeks' feet began moving in concert with Kensi's, his body somehow knowing what she was about to do even though his mind registered the sudden violence as a surprise. The warehouse isn't immense. It isn't even that big. But every yard matters because that's another fraction of a second he's not there for her.

_Five. Four_. Less than a handful of seconds now until he'll be close enough to bark an order at Marchetti that has any meaning. The assault rifle in his hands is comforting, but it's worthless when the intended target is wrapped around Kensi.

_Two. One._

"Stop."

The voice is quiet, commanding. More importantly, it isn't his own. He doesn't need to look over his shoulder to know who's there. His eyes blink closed for the briefest of moments, shutting over the image of Marchetti's gun sliding across the smooth floor. It doesn't take the mind of a Hollywood director to fill in the pieces - Richards pulling herself toward the firearm, finding her feet, and then watching an idiot detective ignore his training as he races over to rescue his partner.

"You can drop the rifle."

Deeks turns slightly toward Richards, keeping Kensi and Marchetti in the corner of his eye but directing most of his gaze toward the new threat.

"You know you're going to have trouble shooting me with the safety on."

The pistol coughs as it discharges through the silencer. Deeks flinches involuntarily in concert with the sound of the bullet passing by his head.

"Okay, I guess it's not. Must be the angle. It looked -"

Another cough and he feels a second bullet pass by on the other side. He's usually the first to attempt to disarm a situation using humor, but he's pretty sure there's only one logical place left for the third bullet to go. And he isn't particularly interested in tempting the armed woman opposite him.

"Let's try this again," she says without a hint of emotion. "Lose the rifle."

He lets the tip of the rifle guide the weapon down to the floor at his feet, cushioning the last few inches by letting the butt rest on the toe of his shoe. The sounds of wrestling behind him have died down except for the occasional grunt. He's pretty sure that's a good thing, but decides against looking back over his shoulder to assess the situation.

"Let him go, Barbie."

A moment passes with no sound. No movement. No acknowledgement. He breathes in slowly, not wanting to disrupt the situation. Another grunt from over his shoulder. This time it is definitely a man's grunt. He can picture Kensi behind Marchetti, forearm constricting around his throat and making anything more than a grunt impossible.

"You let him go or Ken over here is going to need a trip to Malibu General to plug the bullet hole."

Another moment passes, just long enough to release the breath he realized he'd been holding and brace himself. He's not sure for what. He'd like to think he knows she'll release Marchetti. He knows he would if he were in her shoes, but he realized that first time with her on the beach that she was an enigma to him. He realized after watching her around the members of her team that it wasn't just him.

Just as he starts wondering whether he should make a move on his own, he hears the rustle of clothing behind him and an audible exhale as Kensi's arm slides off of Marchetti's throat.

"The rifle." Her eyes flick down toward Deeks' feet for the briefest moment. "Kick it to me."

The muscles in his leg tense up, releasing all at once as he flicks upward with his toe. Richards' eyes leave Deeks and focus on the weapon that is now rifling across the empty space between them. The first twitch of her eyes flipped Deeks' switch and put him into motion, following the trajectory of the projectile.

Richards' forearm sweeps up, taking the brunt of the impact from the rifle as it connects with her. The hand holding the pistol realigns on its own path, bringing the barrel in line with Deeks, but by now he's too close. He crashes into her and propels her backwards, half pushing, half falling. But all that matters is he is close enough to make a difference.

He wraps his arms around his opponent, enveloping her with the only weapons he has, and letting his momentum do the difficult work of taking her out of the fight. They crash against one of the packing crates and Richards' head whips back into the wood slats. He feels, rather than hears, the pistol discharge against him. The impact against his abdomen drives him off of Richards and down to his knees. He looks up in time to see her now limp form falling down on to him, pushing him off balance and spinning him around so that he's facing back toward where Kensi and Marchetti had been.

He mentally registers his partner's form over an inert figure stretched out on the floor.

"How'd... you… I mean… that was... quick." His words come out in staccato, punctuated by heavy breaths.

"Deeks, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm… I just…"

He knows what he wants to say. He wants to tell her he's fine. He wants to tell her he's sorry for splitting up. He wants to make sure she's okay. But the pain in his midsection is blossoming upward and outward and the blackness that had been hovering at the edge of his vision sweeps in and envelops him in the bliss of nothingness.

* * *

His eyes open slowly. She knew it might take a while, but every second had been an exercise in agony.

"You bastard."

He stares up at her, obviously confused.

"Wait a second. I'm the bastard? What happened?"

"You blacked out. Took a bullet to the vest that knocked the wind out of you. And yes."

"Yes?" His brow furrows and his eyes narrow slightly.

She can feel her body start to release now that he's awake. He had only been unconscious a few moments; barely enough time for her to get him out of his vest and check his vitals. But that was all the time she needed to run through a handful of scenarios in her head that all involved a future without him. The way she had felt had been unlike anything she had ever felt before. She knows she should say something reassuring, but she can't focus on anything but the hopelessness that had flooded through her when his eyes rolled back in his head, his body went slack, and he dropped forward onto the floor.

"Yes. Yes, you're the bastard. You're not allowed to scare me like that."

His eyes widen. Then narrow. Then close altogether. He takes in a deep breath and holds it for a few seconds before letting it go.

"I am always here, Kensi," he says, hugging her like she's been dreaming about for weeks. His body is pressed against hers, his face against her hair. She isn't really sure when he sat up, or when his arms encircled her, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters right now except their closeness.

"I want to be here," his voice continues softly. "Whenever I can, I want to be here."

She hopes that will be enough.


End file.
